


shades of blue; they're all you

by fools_mp3



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breaking Up & Making Up, Getting Back Together, M/M, idol!donghyuck, there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:34:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 33,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21975157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fools_mp3/pseuds/fools_mp3
Summary: Jeno learns that sometimes picking Donghyuck also means letting him go.(Or, two paths diverged in an SM Entertainment practice room.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Comments: 70
Kudos: 348





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ jeno keeps talking about how hyuck’s busy traveling the world and being a superstar which made me think . Hm How can I Make This Angsty and here we are.  
> to make things less confusing for you all:
> 
> ⇤ — indicates flashbacks  
> ; — indicates the present
> 
> it is always present-flashback-present-flashback.. so on. flashbacks are not in order. the present is.
> 
> +second chapter is not a continuation of the fic but an index. please click there if oyu want to see all song titles for a playlist and see more in the end notes!  
> 
> 
> _**disclaimer:**_  
>  \+ there are themes and characterisations here that are different from real life. this is  
>  _ **100% fiction**_. some members are not in NCT in this story. i do not view these characters as undeserving to make it into nct, this is strictly fiction  
> \+ nct is not a never-ending group with units in this verse. nct is just one group with a set lineup.
> 
>   
> this nohyuck (together and apart) is sad, complicated, and pathetically in love. i hope even as you’re frustrated with them, you root for them as much as i did writing this.  
> 

**;**

**i’ll only hurt you if you let me**

_february._

  
  


Jeno and Donghyuck fall apart at ten a.m. on a Saturday morning.

It’s a pathetic time to fall apart— Saturday mornings are reserved for pastel blues and ice cream cones while walking around the park. It’s the clear blue sky painted with cotton candy clouds as you lace your fingers together with someone you love. Saturday mornings are for the blue lilies you see being sold next to the bread booth at the farmers market. 

Donghyuck wakes up, head on Jeno’s chest, the low _thump thump thump,_ a familiar beat that gives him comfort when nothing else does, Jeno’s lips against the top of his head. It’s a _could-be_ pastel blue.

But.

But—

“Morning,” Donghyuck mumbles, and he groans when he maneuvers his body to push closer against Jeno’s body and he feels his bones crack with a feeling of relief. “M’sorry for last night. Manager Kim made me stop by the company after the airport to practice for my solo stage at SMTown next week. Took away my phone when I threatened to run.”

He laughs a low chuckle, and Jeno hums in return. It’s happened too many times for him to get upset about at this point. Donghyuck coming back from some other country where he was off being a superstar, off following his dreams, off singing for fans who feel comfort from his honey voice.

Jeno was up until two a.m last night waiting for Donghyuck to come back home, come back from _Malaysia? Thailand?_ (it all starts to blur together at some point) before he had fallen asleep with exhaustion seeping into his bones, pulling and stretching his skin until it’s stretched thin and tired.

This one is a dark, painted, artificial blue. Mixed and mixed and mixed until it’s dark like forgotten memories.

“It was only supposed to be quick, swear on it,” Donghyuck mutters. “Lost track of time though.”

“Did the rehearsal go well though? What are you going to do for your solo stage?”

“Secret, baby,” Donghyuck sing-songs into Jeno’s chest. He taps Jeno’s chest lightly with his fingertips. “Gotta watch it to find out.”

“You know I can’t take time off to go to Japan,” Jeno frowns.

“Like you don’t watch my fancams from the comforts of this bed!” Donghyuck laughs.

Jeno doesn’t deny it.

“I’m free until,” Donghyuck yawns. “Until three o’clock then I have to go to the company. Sorry,” he repeats again, sadly. “I know we were supposed to go do something today but they told me last night I had to come back and tie up some loose ends. They told me I was actually supposed to be there around now. But, I was able to negotiate three o’clock because we’re practicing unit stages and Mark actually has to record in the morning so it actually all works out,” he’s rambling again, something he does when he feels guilty, “but I’m sorry, baby, I know we were supposed to go to the aquariu—“

“It’s okay,” Jeno interrupts, and he shakes his head. Donghyuck stops the rhythmic taps his fingers run against Jeno’s chest, and he moves his head to glance up at Jeno from above him.

“We said we wouldn’t say that anymore.”

Jeno corrects, “It sucks but we’ll figure something out.”

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck repeats again, and Jeno wishes he didn’t spend so much time saying sorry for living his dream.

“Donghyuck,” Jeno starts, and Donghyuck reaches up to clutch at Jeno’s fingers tightly, burying his head into Jeno’s chest further.

“I know, I know,” Donghyuck mumbles. “But I am, I am sorry. You know that.”

  
  
  


Have you ever tried to mix a bunch of blue paint together? Light blue, dark blue, a blue that’s almost grey, pastel blues. Jeno remembers mixing his paintbrush in elementary school into the water after painting the sky, different shades of blue, and the water was cloudy and sad in the cup, leaving Jeno’s chest with a weight on it.

Why is it so cloudy? Why do the colors sit on the top of the water like a storm waiting to happen?

  
  


“Hey, Hyuck,” Jeno breathes out.

“Mmmm?”

“Let’s take a break.”

  
  
  


_Google search,_ **are tsunamis blue?**

 _Results,_ **tsunamis appear out of the blue, in dark blue waves, with white lines surrounding it.**

  
  
  


“From what, baby?” Donghyuck groans, leaning away from Jeno to stretch his back out like a mewling cat. “Fuck, my back hurts.”

  
  
  


_Google search,_ **what are tsunamis?**

 _Results,_ **tidal waves caused by displacement of large bodies of water.**

  
  
  
  


“Let’s take a break,” Jeno repeats, and he doesn’t know if he means it, not really, all he really wants to do is hide under the blankets forever with Donghyuck, but then these words are spilling out, out, out, like tidal waves coming from his heart, and Donghyuck is turning to look at him, confusion and tiredness written all over his face and—

“From what, Jeno?” Donghyuck repeats, sitting up in bed and turning to look at him, but something in his eyes are hardened like he knows what Jeno means. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m getting really busy, you know how hard it is, uni and working at the company, and you know I have to do my thesis,” Jeno says instead; _i’m sorry, i love you, did you know tsunamis occur out of the blue when there is displaceme— “_ honestly, I barely even have time to have lunch with Renjun, and you know how much he bothers me,” a laugh, he’s rambling now, “and I just really think I have to prioritise and move some things around in my life—“

“You need to move me around in your life?”

Jeno stops.

“Hyuck,” Jeno breathes out.

“Jeno, what’s this really about? Why would you say tha— why are you saying this.”

“I’m just, you know that’s not what I meant— you know how busy we both are, and it’s getting really hard for us, anymore, and I think time apart would do us—“

“Stop— you wouldn’t— you wouldn’t ever say this, so what’s this about, Jeno?” Donghyuck says again, voice firm and full of hurt, and he clutches the blue sheets wrapped around him into his fist tightly, tightly, tightly. “Why would you— you’re lying.”

Jeno shakes his head, and he feels helpless, “A break doesn’t mean breaking up. A break is just a break, Hyuck, and, you know—“

“Why would we need a break?” Donghyuck remarks firmly. 

Jeno’s saying anything to try to justify the words that are coming out of his mouth now, anything, anything, anything, “I told you, we’re both getting really busy and time apart would be good. We have to start being reali— _I_ have to start being realistic about thin—“

_This isn’t how things were supposed to go,_ Jeno thinks, _but in what way were they supposed to go? When the idea of a break spilled out of his mouth?_

“Realistic about things? What part of this relationship isn’t realistic, Jeno? What part of this fucking almost four year relationship isn’t— why would you say that— what do you mean we— it’s getting really hard? What’s this really about, Jeno, baby, you wouldn’t do th— that’s the opposite of what we fucking have together, fucking _time,_ why would you want to be separated even lo— and what the fuck do you mean a fucking bre—“

Jeno reaches over to undo the tight grasp Donghyuck has on the sheets, undoing, undoing, undoing. He’s starting to wonder why he’s saying any of this, why he let his tongue slip to his insecurities.

  
  
  


_Google search,_ **how do tsunamis occur?**

 _Results,_ **tsunamis occur because of eruptions underwater.**

  
  
  


“Donghyuck.”

Jeno’s voice is quiet, so quiet, but all it feels in Donghyuck’s heart is blue, blue, blue, icy cold, and scary, and—

“Is it because of that? Because we don’t have time?” Donghyuck demands, and he hates that he feels tears forming in his eyes, and that he sees himself, blue, blue, blue in the reflection of Jeno’s glossy eyes in return, “Why are you saying this? Is it because of yesterday? Last night? You’re saying this because of me, right? Because I never, I’m never here— you’re— I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you know I’m _sorry_ , I’m—“

Jeno hates when Donghyuck says sorry the most, hates that it makes Donghyuck feel blue, when Donghyuck is supposed to be yellow; yellow like the sun, yellow a contrast from the blue in the sky, yellow that hangs off of petals like could-be’s.

“Stop saying sorry,” Jeno says, and how many times has he said this, how many blues are painted in his eyes—

“Then what?! What is it?” Donghyuck snaps, prying his hands away from Jeno’s grip, suddenly cold, too cold, “Why are you doing this? What is happening right now— why are you saying we need to take a fucking brea— we don’t need a break— why would you say we need a break whe— you said together, we’ll do it together, and— we _love_ each other—“

Donghyuck breaks off the sentence, wiping his face with his hands unable to keep the tears from falling from his eyes, a melted canvas of the sky; blue, blue, blue.

  
  


Jeno has played this situation out in his mind thousands of times. Thousands of times and separate non-happy endings. It’s almost masochistic, how much he’s been thinking about this day and waiting for it to come.

  
  


The situations go like this: Donghyuck falls in love with someone else in the same industry he is. Donghyuck gives up because Jeno is not good enough for him— couldn’t even debut together with him. Or maybe it’s just time. And they drift apart. And they forget each other. Because sometimes, that’s how life goes, too, but Jeno doesn’t think— doesn’t think he could ever forget Donghyuck. 

  
  


He never thought it would be like this. Him saying, _let’s take a break, hey, i can’t do this anymore,_ because, well, because. He would always pick Donghyuck if it were up to him. Never, not even if the sky fell, or aliens invaded the earth, and the president of Mars asked him if it was mankind or Donghyuck. He would pick Donghyuck always.

But he’s here now, and he’s letting Donghyuck go, and what he’s learned is maybe picking him always also means letting him go.

  
  
  


Donghyuck wipes his tears away, and inhales loudly, and looks up at Jeno, eyes cold, demanding, “You’re not going to say anything?”

“I’m sor—“

“I don’t want to fucking hear an _I’m sorry,_ Jeno, I want you to fucking take it back,” Donghyuck says, reaching over to push Jeno’s chest. “Take it back.”

Another push, and Jeno wraps his hands around Donghyuck’s wrists, settling it back down into Donghyuck’s lap.

“We love each other, right?” Donghyuck pleads.

“Donghyuck— I, of course, of _course—“_

“Then take it back,” Donghyuck repeats, fumbling with their hands to lightly press his thumb against Jeno’s wrist.

_Thump, thump, thump,_ Donghyuck feels Jeno’s pulse under the pads of his thumb, a jaded blue.

Donghyuck has to feel it, right? This helplessness.

“I think a break would be good for us,” Jeno says, because when you paint a canvas a blue and it dries, and dries, you can’t go back. “We can— we can take a break, and we can focus on some of our own the things we need to get done. And— and. And when we’re ready for each other again, we can, we can talk.”

Donghyuck quiets down at that, like his whole body goes frozen, staring at Jeno, eyes hardening. Jeno can’t look, not when Donghyuck’s looking at him like that.

Not when Donghyuck is looking at him like that, when all Jeno is doing is giving him an out; finally giving him an out.

“I can’t believe you,” Donghyuck scoffs, dropping Jeno’s hand. “I can’t fucking believe you.”

It’s all he says before he’s pushing the blue sheets off his lap and he’s scrambling out of bed, and Jeno is looking at him again; looking at him grab his jeans and the jewelry he scattered over the dresser late last night, and it’s enough to send Jeno into full panic, because, oh, what has he done, _what has he done_ , it comprehends in his mind, when Donghyuck is getting ready to leave and—

“So what were you thinking we do after the fucking break,” Donghyuck’s voice grows louder as he buckles his belt, back facing Jeno who’s stayed frozen in bed, “how long was this break going to fucking last? Until you decide to tell me the truth on what this is fucking about? Because all of this? That’s all _bullshit_ , Jeno, I know you. So how long, Jeno? This break? How long?”

Jeno doesn’t respond.

“Until you decide you have time to prioritise me _, us_ , again?” Donghyuck demands. It’s a blow that’s meant to hurt.

“Donghyuck you know that’s not what I mea—“

“No, listen, you know what,” Donghyuck whirls around and reaches across the bed to grab at his t-shirt. “I don’t fucking know what’s going on,” his voice cracks then, and Donghyuck sounds like he’s near tears again. 

“I don’t fucking understand what’s fucking going on,” he repeats, inhaling loudly, “but if you fucking want this— this break thing. I don’t fucking want it. I don’t fucking want it, I’m not going to have a break with you.”

“You’re not listening,” Jeno’s voice is edging on panic, “a break would be good for us—“

“No, I don’t want a fucking break,” Donghyuck snaps. “Either you’re with me or you’re fucking not. I’m not going to have some fucking _Friends-esque_ misunderstanding with you. So there is not going to be any _let’s take a break for a little while,_ fucking bullshit. You either— you either,” he inhales, shaky. “You either fucking break up with me right now or you take it back.”

He glares at a spot behind Jeno, refusing to meet his eyes, almost like looking at Jeno will break him, and Jeno, Jeno—

He knows if Donghyuck looks at him, he might just crumble, might just throw the stained canvas away, and wrap Donghyuck back in his arms, and say, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I take it back, I don’t know what I was thinking—_

Instead, “I’m _sorry_.”

He doesn’t know what else to say without crumbling.

“I’m— you’re, _you’re_ —“ Donghyuck repeats incredulously. Donghyuck looks at him then, and Jeno feels himself crumbling, and—

Donghyuck inhales again, once, twice, before letting out a large exhale. He looks smaller, suddenly. He sits on the edge of the bed, so close but so far away, reaching over, grabbing Jeno’s hand. Idly, he takes Jeno’s thumb, places it on his own right wrist. This time, Jeno’s feels Donghyuck’s pulse under his thumb, against his skin.

One last time. This blue is despair.

“Jen,” he begs, and it’s the quietest he’s sounded. “Jen, please take it back.”

Jeno’s imagined this scenario a thousand times and it never turned out like this, not in his dreams, not in his nightmares. 

His eyes focus and unfocus, and suddenly it feels like his body is too cold, too ice frozen to say anything.

Donghyuck waits, and waits, before he’s scoffing and getting up to move towards the door. Jeno sees Donghyuck’s silhouette, unfocused, grabbing the last of his things on the dresser, before he’s walking out of the bedroom, towards the front door.

It’s like Jeno’s whole body is moving in slow motion, like his mind is screaming at his body to move faster, move quickly, he’s _leaving,_ you need to take it back, you were just kidding, you don’t mean it—

The footsteps stop suddenly and waits, like Donghyuck is waiting at the front door for Jeno to coming running out after him, and _Jeno, now’s your chance,_ but it’s a second too long, a second too late, and by the time Jeno finally scrambles out of bed, and his feet finally start moving, socks sliding quietly against the hardwood floor, the front door has already slammed shut.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When Jeno was ten, he had submitted a canvas painting to his teacher of his favorite childhood memory: a day at the beach with his family in Busan. His teacher hung up a new painting by a student every month, right by the door, so you couldn’t miss it when you walked into class.

Yena submitted a painting of a beach too, and hers gets picked over his that month. When he asks the teacher why hers was picked over his, the teacher responded, “ _Jeno you did a great job. Next time though, you should use two different blues for the sky and for the water, okay? It just looks like water with a sun in the middle of it. Your sky is too dark, honey.”_

He had run home, his too-big canvas that he was proud of just that morning, and tried to paint over the dark blue sky with a light blue. No matter how much he tried, how many layers of paint he put, the dark blue was still visible under the light paint, and he had cried, and cried, and cried.

  
  
  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**don’t you know? i’m no good for you**

  
  


The first time Donghyuck and Jeno kiss, Donghyuck tastes like peach sour gummies that he snuck into the practice room. 

They’re hiding in one of those small closets in a random long hallway of SM Entertainment, filled with dusty boxes that pile high, high, high, up to the ceiling and Donghyuck is there; _there_ pushing Jeno against the boxes that shake with pressure, dust flying into the air, kissing Jeno like he’s just discovered _this—_ this is how it’s like to live.

  
  
  


It had gone like this:

After their dance trainers tells them they’ve worked hard and pile out of the room, Taeyong— who has unofficially taken the role as Mama Bird and leader of the trainees— tells the rest of them they’ve been given an allotted ten minute break before they were supposed to head to the vocal and rap rooms, respectively. Most of them collapse to the hardwood floor, sweat making their clothes cling to their bodies, a quiet chatter among them, but Donghyuck turns to give Jeno a mischievous grin, yelling loudly to the others, “ _Jeno and I will get some drinks!”_ and pulling him out along into the hallway before Jeno can even blink.

“I don’t want to get drinks. My legs feel like jelly,” Jeno whines with Donghyuck’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, burning hot. It’s a weird kind of burn, a simmer that feels like a hot shower that pierces your skin so much it almost hurts, but you let it burn you anyway because it feels good, good, good. 

Donghyuck laughs, a low rumble in his throat, and he goes the opposite way of the vending machines, towards an unknown hall that Jeno’s never seen anyone walk through. He’s moving quickly, like he knows a secret Jeno doesn’t, and all Jeno can do is follow him as quickly as his legs allow him. 

“Well, we’re not getting drinks, dummy,” Donghyuck responds.

Jeno frowns, “We’re not? But I’m thirsty.”

Donghyuck laughs again, looking left and right as he continues to string Jeno along, before pulling him into a closet room that reeks of loneliness and forgotten files.

“Jeno,” Donghyuck breathes out after shoving him into the closet, to which he responded with a yelp. 

“What is this? How do you know this place?” Jeno questions, turning his head to look at the boxes behind him, wrinkling his nose as dust flies everywhere. “Why are we here? Your asthma is going to act up again, Hyuck.”

He turns his head to look back at Donghyuck, but his breath hitches as Donghyuck moves closer to him. He presses his back against the dusty boxes of files behind him, almost squirming at how Donghyuck looks at him, unwavering. 

“Hey, Jeno,” Donghyuck says again, softer, after he’s shut the door shut and settled in front of Jeno with a look in his eye.

“Yeah?”

“I have something to say. Something to tell you,” Donghyuck says, and his eyes flash with something— maybe nervousness, maybe doubt, but it’s gone in a second, and his eyes go back to looking at Jeno with fondness. “We’ve known each other for a while, right?”

Jeno hums.

“Three years. I’d say that’s a bit of time,” Jeno teases.

“Feels like longer. Was thirteen years old really just three years ago?” Donghyuck giggles.

“Still have a long way to go.”

“Yeah?”

Jeno nods.

‘Together?” Donghyuck asks, quieter this time, and Jeno almost misses it.

Jeno replies, “Of course.”

“Jen,” Donghyuck says.

“Yeah?”

Donghyuck just hums.

Jeno repeats, throat still tight, “Yeah?”

  
  


“Let’s,” Donghyuck says, voice almost like velvet, and Jeno feels— he feels like everything he’s ever wanted is right there in that closet room. Donghyuck pulls on Jeno’s fingers, softly, and then a hard tug, pressing his palm against Jeno’s. “Let’s be together.”

This blue is blue like the ocean. Crashing into the shore in loud waves that fall flat into Jeno’s eardrums. A deep blue from far away, but clear when you move closer and dig your feet in the sand, moving languidly around your ankles. This blue is painted in Donghyuck’s eyes. Deep and almost scary, unknown, but clear when Donghyuck moves closer, and Jeno feels the same feeling he gets when Donghyuck is always close to him. Clear and calm, and everything that makes him feel safe.

  
  
  


“Be together?” Jeno echoes. The simmer he feels against Donghyuck’s palm makes him shiver.

Donghyuck nods, and doesn’t tear his eyes away. Determined.

“You know what I’m trying to say, right, Jen?” Donghyuck asks softly.

Of course he does. He’s felt it for years— this blue.

“Okay,” Jeno says first, quietly, unsure; but then Donghyuck is looking at him with a smile slowly growing on his face and this— this blue isn’t so scary anymore, not dark and murky, and endless, like the ocean sometimes feels, _no_ ; this blue— it’s wading in the water up to your thighs, and your lover throwing you over his shoulder with uncontrollable laughter bubbling into your chest, and your legs wrapping around their waist as the water threatens to spill higher to your shoulders, and—

“Okay,” Jeno repeats, more sure. “Let’s be together.” 

Donghyuck tastes like peach sour gummies that melts into him with every lick he pushes into Jeno’s mouth. Sweet and sour, fitting for Donghyuck, Jeno thinks, with Donghyuck’s sharp personality and sweet touches. He pushes himself further against the boxes because he doesn’t think his legs can hold up much longer.

“Babe,” Jeno murmurs against Donghyuck’s lips, sweet and sour all the same, tingly in the way that Jeno can feel it in his bones. Donghyuck moans at the word. “Baby. Hyuck.”

Donghyuck hums, and pushes even closer, losing his fingers, long and slender, into Jeno’s nape, lost in Jeno’s hair.

“Yeah?” he breathes against Jeno’s lips. If his legs felt like jelly before, he doesn’t think his legs could stand by themselves now. Jeno has to dig his fingers even deeper into the crook of Donghyuck’s waist to steady himself. 

Donghyuck whimpers at the touch.

“What if,” Jeno pulls away slightly, breathlessly, and Donghyuck chases after his lips, “What if we don’t work out?”

Lick, lick, lick, and—

Donghyuck pulls back, and Jeno blinks, dazed, the tingling in his bones still burning.

Donghyuck looks at him, eyes dark, brows furrowed. Jeno shouldn’t have asked. This blue. This blue is the deep ocean coming back, upset, hurt, and—

“Isn’t it worth it?” he asks, hurt lacing his tone, hands fumbling with the hair on Jeno’s nape like it brings him comfort, “Don’t you think this love is worth it to try?”

Jeno looks at him— looks at Donghyuck with his swollen lips and eyes dark, messy hair; looks at him and hears his words crashing into his head like clear blue water washing onto shore, and a grin grows on his face.

He leans forward, forward, forward, pulling Donghyuck back to his lips— this love, this blue, it’s all worth it.

  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**time when i’m tangled with you**

_february._

Jeno doesn’t often go to SUM cafe. It’s overpriced and targeted towards younger tourists of all kinds to awe over the extravagance of SM Entertainment and buy SM artist-themed delicacies, but he won a gift card at a company outing with all the other choreographers and dancers and he wasn’t going to let a 40,000 won gift card go to waste.

So after lecture, instead of going to his apartment like he usually does, waiting around until he has to go to the company in the late afternoon, he tucks his chin into his baby blue scarf and heads to the company early to wine and dine himself at the lower level cafe.

It’s a bad choice, he should have known— Donghyuck’s face along with NCT is displayed everywhere, contrived smiles in soft, white sweaters adorning the walls and the cup sleeve of his latte.

That, and Renjun comes storming up to his table, baseball cap hung low over his face, right when Jeno’s about to shove a forkful of carbonara into his mouth.

“Lee Jeno,” Renjun frowns as he drops onto the seat in front of him.

“What’s up with the hat, Junnie? People will think you’re some sort of secret trainee,” he teases, setting the fork back down onto his plate.

Renjun’s angry facade falters, and he lets out a laugh. “If only they knew, huh?”

Jeno leans forward and waggles his eyebrows, “Why do you think I have my hoodie pulled up over my head? The girls in the table behind me have been looking at me curiously for the past twenty minutes. Pretty sure there’s already fan accounts online of some trainee being spotted eating carbonara by now.”

Renjun laughs.

“I’m hurt you didn’t invite me to eat with you here, Jen. Greedy,” Renjun shakes his head.

Jeno slides the strawberry and creme cake slice he bought towards Renjun. “One bite.”

Renjun rolls his eyes but reaches forward and cuts a piece of the cake shoving it into his mouth. Jeno doesn’t say anything when Renjun reaches forward to get another piece. And then, “I heard from Mark.”

The skin on the back of his neck prickles, but he looks back down at his plate and twirls the pasta onto his fork. “Heard what?”

“Jeno,” and even if Jeno isn’t looking at Renjun, he hears the frown in his voice.

“I’m okay,” Jeno says instead, and he shoves the forkful of pasta into his mouth.

“Are you?”

“I will be.”

“Donghyuck’s a mess,” and when Jeno doesn’t respond, Renjun adds, “and even though you’re sitting here, and laughing with me, I know you are too.”

“Do you,” Jeno says dryly.

Renjun raises his eyebrow, “The glasses are doing a shit job covering up the purple under your eyes.”

“I ran out of contacts.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Jeno frowns and reaches forward to snatch the plate with cake back. “Mean.”

Renjun sighs, “What happened, Jeno?”

“Nothing.”

He feels like a child being scolded, head down and shoulders hunched into himself.

Renjun softens his voice,“Just last week you were telling me how excited you were for Donghyuck to be back.”

“I am— I _was,_ ” Jeno says plainly.

“Then?” Renjun presses.

“Then things change.”

“Things don’t change that quickly.”

“Well they do,” Jeno says harshly, and he trains his eyes onto the fake blue flower in a plastic vase on the table.

“They _don’t_ and it’s not just me who knows that, but Donghyuck,” Renjun responds, unfazed at the edge in Jeno’s voice.

Jeno looks back down at his plate. He hasn’t eaten much, most of his pasta moved restlessly around his plate, and he shifts his weight around in his seat.

“I wanted a break,” Jeno confesses.

“A break?”

Jeno nods, “A break. I don’t know. It just came out.”

“Just came out?” Renjun asks, and he leans forward to put his elbows on the table, leaning his chin on his enclasped hands. “A break between you and Donghyuck?”

“I just,” Jeno runs his finger through his bangs. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. A while.”

“Did something happen between you two? Did Donghyuck do something?”

“What? No. _God,_ no. It was— nothing like that. It wasn’t him,” Jeno furrows his eyebrows and licks his lips. “Never him. It— it was me. I was— it’s my fault.”

Renjun doesn’t say anything in response to that, and Jeno realises he’s waiting for something, maybe for Renjun to agree and tell him that it _is,_ it is his fault, everything wrong and everything hard in his and Donghyuck’s relationship being his fault.

But Renjun doesn’t, and instead looks at him with something akin to pity. He doesn’t deserve it— that pity. 

“It’s my fault,” Jeno repeats. “I’m not— I’m not being better. I’m not _better,_ for him, you know, and that’s what he deserves— better.”

“Jeno,” Renjun starts.

“It’s— it’s not just because he’s so busy, you know?” He fidgets with his sleeves and pulls them over his fists in his lap. “It’s not— I mean it’s part of it, but. He’s— Donghyuck’s a _star—“_

He cuts himself off.

“Jeno, if it’s about that, you know that—“

Jeno shakes his head, “No it’s not like that— it’s not— I’m not— that doesn’t matter anymore, you know that— just. Did you know he always does this thing where he constantly apologises for not doing enough?” He laughs listlessly. “Not doing enough. _Him_. I hated it. We always fought about that. ”

“He was always a star, even before all of this, you know that,” Jeno continues. “It’s different now, though. Things are different now. We fell in love years ago. It was easier then, you know. Things are different now. I don’t want to keep him here, like this. It’s selfish.”

The way he repeats it rings in his ears like he’s trying to convince himself. He finally looks up at Renjun. It feels like a dark blue sky without any stars like this.

“Anyway,” Jeno exhales, and he blinks back tears in his eyes he didn’t realise were threatening to come out. “I asked for a break. And he said he didn’t want that. And I— it’s not like I really wanted it, not really. But I’ve been thinking about this a long while. The only reason I held on for so long was because I just wanted to be selfish a little while longer. But it came out, and I told him— maybe just a little break. For a little bit and we can come back to each other— I thought— I thought I could do the right thing and be selfish at the same time.”

“Have him but not have him.”

Jeno tears his eyes away, “He told me he didn’t want a break. Either we were together or we weren’t. There was no grey. Just. In or out.”

“And you chose out,” Renjun finishes, softly.

The look on Renjun’s face has Jeno furrowing his eyebrows. “You don’t get to— to judge me for this, Renjun, you don’t understand how _hard_ —“

“You have no right to tell me I don’t understand,” Renjun cuts him off firmly.

Jeno abruptly stops his sentence. Renjun’s right. Him out of all people would understand how Jeno feels. After all, Mark and Renjun had the same conversation he and Donghyuck had, albeit a few years behind them. Mark and Renjun followed a similar path.

But Mark and Renjun are still together. And Jeno and Donghyuck have fallen apart.

A crimson blue.

“And I’m not, not judging you, I would never do that,” Renjun continues, and hurt seeps into his voice, shocked Jeno would even accuse him of something like that.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Renjun doesn’t respond to that, instead leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest.

Jeno pushes the rest of the cake slice in front of Renjun again.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno repeats, more sincere.

  
  


Renjun takes one look at him before he sits straight again, leaning forward to grab the fork to give himself a bite.

“I understand where you’re coming from, you know,” Renjun remarks, after a few minutes of silence between them.

“You do?”

Renjun shrugs, swallowing, “Of course I do. We’re— you think I never thought about Mark and I like that, too? That we’d be better apart?”

“Then…”

“Jeno,” Renjun sighs, and he adjusts his cap so he’s able to look Jeno squarely in the eye. “You know what’s a saying that I _fucking_ hate?”

Jeno shakes his head.

“ _'_ _You don’t choose who you love’._ God, I fucking hate that.”

Jeno snorts, “You don’t believe that?”

“God no, the fuck?” Renjun leans forward to take a sip from Jeno’s latte. He swallows. “Imagine if it were that easy. Maybe when we were younger and everything was simpler, then. But you know, real love. The good kind. You choose that shit, you know.”

“Swear you were in love with Jaehyun-hyung, though, and you didn’t choose that,” Jeno interrupts.

Renjun kicks him under the table, “I’m trying to be fucking serious here, _god.”_

Jeno laughs. “I’m sorry.”

“Listen here, Lee Jeno,” Renjun says, and he leans forward, pushing his elbows against the corner of the table. He softens his voice, but it still holds, firm. “Love _is_ a choice. You can be attracted and infatuated with someone without wishing to be, I’ll give you that. But the good kind? That good type of love you wouldn’t want any other way? That’s a choice.”

“You choose them, because they make you feel a way that no one else ever does, and you choose them, because they take care of you and make you feel protected, and notice the little things you thought no one would ever notice,” he continues. “But that’s the thing. You _choose._ You choose to love them even if you don’t want to. Even when you’re hurt, or when you’re pissed, even if it means you’re losing a part of yourself. You love them anyway. You deal with the bad shit. You deal with the helplessness. You deal with all of it because they make you feel a way no one else does. You still choose to love them. Get it?”

He does, in retrospect. He understands what Renjun is trying to say.

But,

Jeno shakes his head, “Yeah, but I don’t understand why you’re telling me thi—“

“It means I understand where you’re coming from,” Renjun says. “You made your _choice._ You chose the act in which you love Donghyuck in the best way you know how. You let him go, and I know it’s not because you love him any less. Fuck, if anything, it’s almost admirable that you love him enough to leave him like this.”

Jeno doesn’t say anything to that, and Renjun continues, “But Jeno. You forgot the most important part of love, and choosing. You didn’t let Donghyuck have his choice.”

“I—“

“I know you think you know what’s best for him, what’s best for you guys, but, a choice like that,” Renjun shakes his head.

“He wouldn’t have _left_ ,” Jeno defends, “We would’ve been stuck in a limbo, when he can do so much _bette—_ there’s better people for him— people doing bette—“

“There may be better people, hell, there’s people definitely doing better than you, Jeno. There’s always going to be someone doing better than us. But that doesn’t fucking matter,” Renjun scoffs. “That doesn’t matter, because are they better for him?”

“There’s people doing better, and yet,” Renjun pauses. “You guys chose each other. And continued to. For years.”

And that, that.

Renjun doesn’t understand, Jeno thinks.

“This _is_ choosing him, I am choosing him, I’m _always_ choosing him,” Jeno stresses.

Renjun nudges his foot against Jeno’s ankle. “Maybe you are. Maybe this choice, maybe it’s for the best.” He shrugs, “I can’t tell you that. There’s no right and wrong in this situation, and even if there was, I’m not in the position to be deciding.”

“But,” Renjun sits up straighter. “A choice like that. Donghyuck deserved to choose too, don’t you think?”

  
  
  


⇤

**distract my brain from the terrible news (it’s not living if it’s not with you)**

  
  


Donghyuck makes it into Neo Culture Technology, or _NCT_ , along with the rest of his and Jeno’s friends— Mark, Jaemin, Taeyong, Doyoung (and a couple others he knows by name but was always too intimidated to get to know)— but he; he does not.

The execs nod to all the trainees, and in response they all bow back, a perfect 90 degrees, grim looks on their faces, even the ones who’ve made it, mumbling a _thank you_ to the _you’ve worked hard’_ s the higher ups had given out. 

It was only supposed to be the regular monthly evaluation.

It was only supposed to be the regular monthly evaluation, and Jeno stayed up late last night because he snuck out with Donghyuck to walk along Han River, and then he stayed up even later to play on his gameboy, and maybe, maybe if he wasn’t so tired his moves would have been sharper, his eyes would have been more entrancing and the point is; the _point_ _is_ , it was only supposed to be the regular monthly evaluation. It wasn’t supposed to be the deciding meeting of SM’s new boy group.

But it was, and Jeno— Jeno doesn’t make it.

Jeno who has been there for four years, Jeno who has gotten up before dawn to practice before going to school, Jeno who walks around school with blistered feet and aching bones, going straight back to the company after classes, unlike the other kids who go together to cram school, to practice until midnight— this Jeno, this Jeno who gives most of his childhood to a dream he lost along the way; this Jeno doesn’t make it.

After the execs all pile out from behind their intimidating tables and seats, and out of the big practice room, the trainees wait a beat, a moment, and they’re all collapsing on the floor, a heavy silence filling it with bated breaths. 

Donghyuck who stands next to Jeno when the names are called, Donghyuck whose hand twitches in anger and hurt after names are called, clutches Jeno’s hand tightly after everyone falls to the floor, physically and emotionally exhausted. They don’t exchange words, and even though Donghyuck tries to meet eyes with Jeno, the latter keeps his eyes shut tight.

The managers who sit on the side of the room look at them with silent pity, before they stand up, thick papers in their hands. 

“Taeyong, Ten, Doyoung, Jaemin, Mark, Johnny, Jungwoo, Jaehyun, and Donghyuck,” Manager Kim calls, “Head to practice room three, please.”

The trainees who’s names are called all glance at the other trainees, objection on the tip of their tongue. Not one of them says a word, though, not in response, but they also don’t move either, frozen on the floor, clutching the hands of their friends, the family they’ve all grown into. Jungwoo holds onto Renjun’s hand so tight across from Jeno that Renjun has to pry his own hands out of Jungwoo’s iron grip.

“To practice room three,” Manager Kim repeats, and she says it with so much weight that they don’t do anything but scramble to their feet.

“Let’s talk later,” Donghyuck whispers into Jeno’s ear, last one of them to stand up, tracing his thumb across the back of Jeno’s hand one last time before he’s letting go. “Please.”

They pile out, one by one, as Donghyuck clings to Mark, heads down low, feet shuffling.

There’s things that Jeno should think about. Things that he should feel. Jeno knows that. Like, what does he tell his parents, maybe— _his parents are going to be so disappointed, they’ve only ever wanted him to follow his dreams;_ and what is he going to do— _he’s only ever known working to be an idol, he’s only ever known this dream;_ and what is he going to do without Donghyuck— _how is he going to be separated from Donghyuck, why didn’t he work as hard as Donghyuck, why did he let Donghyuck down._

These are the things he should feel, he should think about; he knows this, but instead. Instead he feels, he feels—

The type of blue feels like a fluorescent blue burning through his eyelids, sharp, and quick, even if he has it shut tight so much that it almost hurts. It comes in flashes through his eyelids that make his heart bleed, an internal bleed that feels like blue veins coursing through your whole body.

“Jeno, Jisung, Renjun, Xiaojun, Yuta, Yukhei, Sicheng, Taeil,” Manager Cho— she’s Jeno’s favorite manager out of all of them, a different kind of kindness in here eyes— calls, and they all abruptly look up to meet her eyes. They’re still kind, Jeno thinks, even now. “I want you guys to stay here. The rest of you guys, go ahead and head back to the dorms. You’ve worked hard.”

It’s funny, he thinks. He doesn’t make it into the idol lineup but a part of him stays somehow hopeful that any minute now they’re going to say, _just kidding! we’re pulling a prank on you guys. we haven’t decided the lineup yet. you guys are safe for now._ He looks around the room and tries to think about why they would pull a practical joke on him and the rest of the trainees who sit next to him nervously, but he can’t think of any. His stomach feels like it’s lower than his feet, and he tries not to let the tingly feeling creeping in his fingers hurt.

“You guys have worked hard,” Manager Cho says after the rest of the trainees file out, and there her eyes go again. Kindness, always, “I’m so sorry.”

Jeno hates that she says that, hates that she apologises, because now, _now,_ it’s all starting to feel a bit more real.

“Where do we go from here?” Taeil speaks up after few minutes of silence, and his voice cracks— it’s the first time Jeno’s ever heard Taeil’s voice crack, and he almost wants to laugh at the thought.

“That’s why I wanted you guys to stay behind,” Manager Cho confirms, and she looks down at the pile of papers in her hand, fiddling with the corners. She looks back up again, and scans around the room, looking at the scattered dreams in front of her. “You guys and your future here, with SM.”

“You guys still show potential. There were many different factors in creating Neo Culture Technology, it just turns out that you guys just didn’t fit into it,” she says apologetically, and for the first time since the news was announced, does he feel some sort of emotion besides emptiness— embarrassment.

_You don’t fit into it,_ his mind repeats over and over.

“Even if you didn’t make it into NCT, SM Entertainment still finds value in you guys, we would be fools not to,” she continues, “and we would like you guys to continue training here with us.”

“Keep being trainees?” Yuta echoes.

She nods, “It is up to you whether you do or you don’t, we are open to terminating the contract should you decide to do so. We cannot promise you a debut or _when_ the next debut will be, but we _do_ know that we do not want to let you go yet.”

Jeno’s hands form fists in his lap, tight and clenching, and somehow this feels worse— this feels like a cheat out, this feels like—

A hand comes to cover Jeno’s, unfolding his hands, palms facing up. He looks up towards the hand that unravels his, and finds Jisung smiling at him sadly. It’s comforting, even if Jisung is younger, and smaller, and more naive, it’s comforting.

“Look,” Manager Cho says, and this time, her tone is kinder, less business-like, and more like an older sister, the voice she uses when the trainees are feeling down and she cheers them on when they’re on their way to practice. “I’m sorry. I really am. I know it’s hard, but you all knew this, right? Knew how hard this path will be when you joined in the first place. But you have all made it here— in SM. That’s a strong feat in itself.”

“I think each and every one of you guys in this room deserve to debut too, but,” she shrugs. “You’re allowed until the end of the week to make a decision. You don’t have to make it now. I know it’s a hard choice to make. Talk to your parents about it. You can always talk to me and Manager Kim about it. Just come talk to us and let us know your decision by the end of this week, okay?”

  
  


Jeno is seventeen when fluorescent blue burns and burns, like a scalding light that doesn’t give way to any insecurities or hopeless escape. It feels like being naked in front of a room of people you don’t know, and everything that you’ve ever cared about laid in front of you and they chant, _pick one, pick one only; pick one good, pick one sweet, pick one that won’t set you aflame,_ all while you’re burning, burning, burning.

  
  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**do you dream? do you cry at night?**

  
  


_march._

  
  


Donghyuck calls him and leaves three voicemails after the fact.

The first: _I’m sorry for what happened. I don’t— I didn’t mean. I don’t want that break, Jen. I don’t want it. But I don’t want to break up. I don’t want it to end like this. Can we talk? Baby, please I know something happened. Please call me._

The first voicemail feels like a moonlight blue. Comforting and lonely all the same, a blue that threatens a sense of loss.

  
  


The second: _Jeno, please call me back. I don’t want it to end like this. Just. Call me fucking back, okay? Please. This is so unfair. I’m so mad at you._

This blue is morning blue. A blue that toes the line of permanency, or lack of. 

The third: _Is this how you want to end things? Fine. Fuck you. Fuck you, Lee Jeno. [loud inhale] Fuck you. I hate you so much. Don’t call me. Don’t try to talk to me. Fuck you. I can’t believe you. [silence] I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just. Just talk to me please. Tell me what happened. We can figure this out, Jen. Just. Don’t shut me out. Please. Please._

  
  


Azure blue feels like regret masked in shades of hopefulness. Mixed together just enough that has you believing every lie ever told— that everything will be okay, everything will work out fine.

  
  


Jeno knew it would hurt— what he did, _of_ _course_ he did. Of course he knew it would hurt, that it would burn a cerulean blue, so alarmingly bright, you wouldn’t even say what’s coming, but what he didn’t know was that this feeling, this _blue,_ would be almost unbearable. 

Who knew that letting go would be so unbearable?

  
  
  
  
⇤

**put your hand in mine, you know that i want to be with you all the time**

  
  


Donghyuck and Jeno meet when they’re thirteen, and Donghyuck had already been a trainee for a year.

A new round of auditions pass, and when the new trainees all pile into the training room, luggage and laundry bags trailing alongside them, Donghyuck’s eyes immediately fall onto one of the smallest ones, hair swept over his eyes, clutching a volleyball to his chest.

The managers leave them there to introduce themselves and get acquainted, and Donghyuck pushes pass several people in his basketball shorts and oversized t-shirt to get to the boy.

“What’s up with you?”

The boy blinks back at him owlishly. “Excuse me?” 

“Why would you bring a volleyball here?” Donghyuck asks curiously, his thirteen-year old mouth as filterless as can be. He says it louder, as the other kids start to chatter and get acquainted with each other, the excitement of new people coming into the company in the air.

“I— I just thought I could play with it,” the boy stammers out, clearly intimidated by Donghyuck’s straight forwardness.

“We don’t really have time to play volleyball,” Donghyuck responds with a wrinkled nose., but he leans over to pluck the ball from the boy’s chest, tossing it around with his arms.

“Oh,” he responds, forming an ‘O’ with his mouth. “I thought it would be like summer camp or something.”

That leaves Donghyuck barking out a loud, high-pitched laugh. This boy was funny, so naively funny.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Huh,” Donghyuck muses. “I would have thought you were younger than me.”

“So I’m older?” the guy asks, and for some reason, a hopeful glint forms in his eye.

Donghyuck snorts, “No. We’re same aged friends.”

“You’re thirteen, too?”

Donghyuck nods in confirmation, reaching forward to grab the handle of the too-big luggage that stood idly next to the boy.

“What’s your name anyway?”

“Jeno.”

“Well, Jeno, I’m Donghyuck. It’s not really like summer camp around here.”

“It’s not?” Jeno sounds a bit scared.

Donghyuck shakes his head. “No. But the classes here are insane. You’ll love it. My favorite’s vocal class. Do you sing?”

Jeno shakes his head.

“What do you do, then?”

“What do you mean?”  
  


Donghyuck shoots him a questioning look, “How did you get in?”

“They scouted me. On the streets.”

“Huh,” Donghyuck muses. “So you don’t do anything?”

Jeno looks at him defensively, “I’ve acted in a few commercials before, I guess.”

“Okay, but don’t you want to be an idol?” Donghyuck presses on.

“I guess,” Jeno repeats.

Donghyuck sighs. “Whatever. I think you’ll like it here. Dorms are really small but I like it around the company. Plus the canteen’s awesome. I really like the aunties’ foods.”

“Oh, okay,” Jeno lets out, but he still sounds scared and unsure.

“Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not,” Jeno protests, and Donghyuck sees blue in his eyes. 

(Jeno’s eyes are a dark brown, but Donghyuck sees blue, blue, blue, a clear blue, a blank slate, and Donghyuck almost feels jealous of it.)

“Besides, you have me now,” Donghyuck says anyway, and he grins.

  
  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**all we have is all we know (nothing really feels like you)**

_march._

Jeno gets drunk one night, alone in his apartment, by himself, so _completely_ drunk, so unlike himself— so unlike the Lee Jeno that everyone knows; the Lee Jeno that’s calm, collected, and never falls out of the line he draws for himself.

Nothing brought it on, not really, but just like every night for the past month, he comes home feeling particularly bad about himself in the empty spaces of his apartment, even if he spent the whole day distracting himself with work to feeling anything but, and, and—

He gets so drunk that he doesn’t even realise he’s dropping the fourth soju bottle onto his living room floor, and fumbling through his phone contacts before laughing to himself, realising he never removed Donghyuck from the number one spot on his Favorite’s list.

It goes to voicemail, of course it does, he thinks belatedly, drunkenly, _Donghyuck is too busy out there being a star. Of course it will go to voicemail._

That’s exactly what he says after the operator tells him to leave a message after the beat, mumbling helplessly into the receiver.

Jeno’s one and only voicemail to Donghyuck after the fact goes like this:

_Donghyuck, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I make you feel blue. Donghyuck, Hyuck. Hyuck, you’re a superstar. A star. A star that shines bright in the sky. You’re not the blue. You’re not the blue._

  
  


It goes unanswered, and Jeno wakes up with no recollection of the voicemail.

  
  
  
  
  


⇤

**you color me blue (with your head in your hands)**

  
  


The start to the end goes like this:

The first time Donghyuck and Jeno fight, really fight— not like those childish ones where Donghyuck steals the last piece of rice cake when Jeno had already called dibs— it was a denim blue.

Blue that’s rough and hurts after hours of being suffocated by it. Blue that, if you wash it enough, wears down to a soft type of comfort.

This blue is Donghyuck throwing the contents of his suitcase out against the living room wall, guilt slamming along with it, and Jeno clutching his mug in his hand so tight that the porcelain against his skin starts to feel like rubber.

“Why don’t you ever fucking _fight_ for us?!” Donghyuck cries out, and he’s shaking with so much anger, so much guilt, that his wrists rattle against his skin like it’s taunting him, shaking against his sides as the world starts to blur against his tears.

How many missed dates? How many missed phone calls because of exhaustion? How many days without feeling the warmth that comes from Jeno’s fingertips? All because of him?

“You think I’m not fighting for us?” Jeno yells back, unmoving from his position behind the kitchen counter, watching with glazed eyes as Donghyuck paces back and forth in the living room. “You think this—” he waves his free hand around him, “You think this isn’t fucking fighting for us? This— this _is_ fucking fighting for us, Donghyuck!”

“Fighting for us?” Donghyuck hisses, “This isn’t— none of this— Why is everything just — why does everything have to be just — I’m so tired of you saying _it’s okay,_ it’s okay this, and that, it’s not! It’s not — it’s not oka— _we’re_ not okay—“

Jeno drops his mugs haphazardly on the counter, not caring that it makes a loud noise against the marble as he stalks over to Donghyuck, jamming a finger into his chest. He sees blue everywhere, denim blue in light and dark washes, miscommunication and misunderstanding surrounding it, rough, and worn. Torn on the edges.

Jeno knows it’s his fault, really. Donghyuck is right. Things shouldn’t have turned out this way; shouldn’t have gotten to this point. But. But—

“You think I want to say it’s okay?” Jeno snaps. “You think I want to pretend like everything is fine? That I see you once a month if I’m lucky? That I want to see you tired across the world through shitty fucking wifi only because you insist on Facetiming still even if you’ve had rehearsals and a show for twenty fucking hours straight? But I _have_ to. _We_ have to. We have to be okay. There’s nothing— we can’t just— you’re living your— we _have_ to be okay, Donghyuck. So what— what do you want me to say, Donghyuck?! _What_ ? Tell _me_.”

“I want you to tell me it’s not fucking okay!” Donghyuck shoves back. “I want you to tell me _Donghyuck, it’s not fucking okay that you promised to be home yesterday but another schedule has come up. Pick me,_ I want you to fucking— to fucking tell me when it gets hard I want you to fucking fight me and tell me what you want! Don’t be so fucking— don’t be so fucking passive about everything! Do you not— do you not care about us?! Do you not want to fight for us? I want you to _tell me what you want.”_

Donghyuck drops to the floor next to his suitcase, his items strewn messily around it, pressing his palms to the back of his eyelids, willing his tears back in, _don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,_ pressing, pressing hard, hoping the feeling will go away. He presses hard, and sees blue.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and it’s a lost cause anyway, because tears fall from the little cracks and crevices of his eyes that he left unguarded. He tries anyway, to press his eyelids even harder. “I’m sorry, I’m just— I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not your fault, I know it’s not, I’m just— I’m sorr—“

“Hey,” he feels lips against the crown of his forehead, and suddenly, arms are wrapped around him, and he’s swaying back and forth on the hardwood floor, and he doesn’t— he doesn’t deserve all of this, he doesn’t deserve this _good_ that comes with Jeno, he deserves blue, he deserve rough blue that hurts and tightens over your skin like it’s suffocating you. He doesn’t deserve the calm ocean blue that creeps up, up, up, ever so softly, this blue that he feels when he’s in Jeno’s arms.

“Hey,” Jeno repeats, softer, fingers clutching so tight against Donghyuck’s skin he’s sure it’s going to bruise, “it’s o—Hyuck. We’ll be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck says again, into Jeno’s chest, and Jeno tilts his chin up with his fingers, icy against Donghyuck’s warm face, wiping the tears that come down gently. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what we should do.”

“Stop apologising for this,” Jeno says, and it’s with so much conviction that leaves Donghyuck falling apart in his arms all over again, heart-broken but hopeful, just like he did years ago. “It’s not your fault. You’re fucking following your dreams, Donghyuck. You’re so good. You’re so fucking good, so stop apologising.”

“It’s hard,” Donghyuck hiccups. “We were— this was— we were supposed to do this together.”

Do you know how it feels to wear denim so rough that it almost burns?

It feels like—

“Maybe,” Jeno replies, “but things are different now. We’re both okay now. We just have to get through this.”

“This shouldn’t be something we have to _get through,_ this is our _life,_ all because— it’s _my_ fault, I’m so—“

“Stop saying that,” Jeno says firmly. “Stop saying sorry. Stop saying sorry for living your fucking dream, Donghyuck.”

“We’re still together, Donghyuck,” he adds, and Donghyuck’s fingers clutch his so tightly that leave his bones feeling sore. “We’re still together. We’re still doing this together.”

Donghyuck feels like blue, blue, blue. Denim that’s torn on the edges. Rough and tired, and worn down— everything about him.

  
  


Jeno aches and wonders how many shades of blue there could possibly be.

  
  
  


**;**

**getting washed away in you**

  
  


_april._

  
  


It should’ve been easy for Jeno to forget.

Donghyuck goes on tour with the rest of NCT, and it’s a worldwide tour this time. The United States, Canada, even Europe. The full stop. He’s thousands of miles away, and for two, toeing close to three months, Donghyuck and the rest of NCT don’t step foot in Korea for more than a day.

So Jeno thinks it should have been easy for him to forget.

But he’s everywhere. Donghyuck is everywhere.

Jeno sees him all over the company, which, he should’ve been prepared to get used to, but before _all of this,_ they didn’t do anything but fill a sense of pride in him. But now, from NCT albums and posters displayed everywhere, _Haechan’s_ grin plastered on walls, all Jeno feels is an anchor hooked somewhere onto his chest, aching. He sees him in the cafe only two blocks away from his apartment, decorations for some cafe event, decorated with the sun and _HAECHAN_ written all over the walls for two weeks straight. He sees him on the canned Sprite he gets from the vending machine, the NCT X Sprite sign pasted next to Donghyuck’s grinning face, and he thinks about how out of all the members he could have gotten, the vending machine shooting out Donghyuck’s can is a joke played by the universe.

He’s everywhere, and no matter how hard Jeno tries, he can’t forget.

He can’t forget, maybe, because after a long day from the company, or from the library, or a late-night dinner with Renjun, Donghyuck still fills the spaces in Jeno’s apartment, his _home._ Donghyuck fills it with the pile of comic books he has in the corner of the living room, where he spent a lot of time with his back laid flat on the floor, his feet leaning up against the wall. Or when Jeno opens the pantry and there it is: the first two shelves in the cabinet reserved for Donghyuck, always reserved for Donghyuck since Jeno had moved in, filled with sweet and sour gummies, peach soda, and Maltesers that Jeno has to specially order online because he had to bulk-buy them.

Or maybe it’s in the way Jeno wakes up every morning and reaches for his toothbrush and Donghyuck’s blue ones sit, still there next to his green one, and how it reminds him everyday of the first time he stood by the door to his bedroom, looking at Donghyuck lying in bed fondly, and quietly, _maybe— maybe you could leave a toothbrush here? at my place,_ and Donghyuck looking at him, equally as fond, before he was reaching down in his duffle bag and taking out a newly bought toothbrush, _i was going to ask you today— if i could leave one here._

It’s how he still sleeps on the left side of the bed, the right side untouched, as if Donghyuck was coming back. Some of Donghyuck’s mugs in the cupboard, the orchid that Donghyuck had brought to his apartment on his window sill, the words _i can’t take care of her because i’m always traveling jen, you have to take care of her for me, promise me!!,_ still ringing in his chest. 

His body moves around his apartment like there’s always someone meant to fill in the other spaces, no matter how hard his brain tries to remind him that _you did this, he’s not coming back, this is not like the other times, this is permanent,_ and maybe, maybe, that’s why Jeno can’t seem to forget. 

  
  
  


⇤

**leaving is fine; it’s just i don’t wanna be all by myself again**

  
  


The first year of university, Jeno joins his university’s dance team because even if being an idol was no longer his dream, dancing had a grasp on him that didn’t want to let go. He missed it too much, and even though the team was competitive, they were all amazed by Jeno’s skills, wondering where he got that kind of training. 

He never answers the questions, but finds that no one really minds, not when he’s offering choreography that gets them trophies at competitions.

Eventually he has to quit, because Manager Cho gives him a call, out of the blue one day, when he’s stumbling out of Integrated Studio on a hot summer day, with a proposition, a new proposition.

“Come be a choreographer’s assistant Jeno,” Manager Cho says over the crackle of the phone, after pleasantries are exchanged, and Jeno has to stop to gather his bearings.

“What?”

“Listen,” Manager Cho says, “You know Renjun produces for us now, right?”  
  


“Yeah, we still keep in touch,” Jeno admits.

She laughs, kind, as always, “Of course you do. It’s how we found you again.”

“Found me again?” he echoes.

“Well, he showed us a dance from one of the dance competitions for your university.”

Jeno freezes, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, told us you choreographed it yourself. We enjoyed it a lot.”

“We?”

“I showed it to one of our main choreographers. Hwang Soojin. She enjoyed it. She wants to work with you. To be her dance assistant,” Manager Cho propositions.

“What?” he repeats.

“The pay is not great. You’re only an assistant, but you never know what could happen,” Manager Cho continues. “And we know you. A lot of us know you. So I think you’d work well here. You would be working with the trainees, helping them with dance lessons, not necessarily choreographing yet, but—“

“I can’t,” Jeno says, “I— I have— I have dance, and I go to university now, and I’m trying to be an _architect,_ I can’t just go back to SM—“

“We’re aware that you go to school now,” Manager Cho says gently. “We’re willing to work around your work schedule. You wouldn’t be working full time anyway, just part-time, so it wouldn’t be so bad.”

Electric blue runs through his veins again at the thought of coming back to SM. But not to be a trainee, but something akin to what Renjun does now, working behind the scenes. He never even considered doing the same thing.

“I would— this is— I would have to think about this, can I think about this?” Jeno breathes out. 

What does he want?

_What does he want?_

“Of course,” Manager Cho says. “I— we actually want you to drop by here. I think you should meet Soojin— she’s the one who really insisted on hiring you. And we can talk more about what we can offer, you’d be hired as a freelancer for now, so you don’t have to worry about a contract, and— anyway. You can text me through the same number I have still. And we would really like you to drop by. We can talk about this.”

“I— okay,” Jeno replies. “Okay, I will. Thank you. For this.”

“Thank Renjun, yeah?” is the last thing she says, laughing lightly, before hanging up.

  
  


The first thing he does afterwards _is_ calling Renjun. 

“What the fuck,” he hisses over the phone, as he finds it in him to start moving his feet again. “What the fuck. What the _fuck.”_

“So you got the call,” Renjun says in lieu of a greeting.

“What the fuck, Renjun, I never said you could— you could _show_ them that,” confusion bleeds into his voice.

“I didn’t mean to! It just, came up in conversation,” Renjun says defensively, and even if Jeno can’t see Renjun, he knows Renjun has an apprehensive look on his face. “I was just talking to Soojin-noona and I decided to show her the dance that won you guys that regional trophy thing. She really liked it.”

Jeno exhales, “Really?”  
  


A beat of silence, before Renjun replies, “Yeah.”

Jeno thinks Renjun was probably nodding his head.

“Yeah, she liked it so much Jeno. Told me and Manager Cho she wanted you on board here. Manager Cho called you, right?”

“She did, she just called me,” Jeno admits. “I didn’t— I didn’t say yes.”

“You just said _no?”_

“No,” Jeno says defensively. “I didn’t _just say no._ I told her— I told her I need to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about? Jeno this could be _huge_ for you,” Renjun insists, “I mean yeah, this is just a little bit for now but you could really climb up the ranks here, Jeno.”

“I have _responsibilities,”_ Jeno retorts. “I have my dance team, and I have so many major requirements, I don’t want to drop out of schoo—“

“I already told them about your school,” Renjun counters. “They told me they would work around your schedule. Jeno, I know you still want to dance, and you still _love_ it, and this could mean so many things for you.”

Jeno loses the tail end of Renjun’s sentence as his bus arrives noisily and he climbs on board. 

“Jeno, are you listening?” Renjun demands into his ear.

“I’m out right now,” Jeno resumes.

“Jeno,” Renjun maintains. “You can’t just use your responsibilities as an excuse so tell me why you don’t want to take this.”

“There’s nothing else,” Jeno declares, “It’s school. You know how busy I am.”

“Jeno,” Renjun repeats.

He sighs.

_What does he want?_ He asks himself again.

“You know more than anyone, Jun,” Jeno placates softly, leaning his head on the window next to his seat. “I don’t want this to be like last time.”

Renjun is quiet for a few moments that if not for the crackle of the line, Jeno would have thought he had hung up.

“Jeno,” Renjun murmurs. “You know it’s not going to be like last time.”

“You don’t know that.”

“The stakes aren’t so high this time, Jen,” Renjun insists. “And you’d be starting out freelance. Like I did. I have a contract now, a really good one, and it’s— it’s good when you’re behind the scenes, Jen. Really good. But you can start out freelance. See if you like it. And if you don’t. You can leave. It’s not going to be like last time.”

“Promise?”  
  


Renjun laughs. “You know I don’t do promises, Jen.”

Jeno hums. “I’ll stop by the company and talk to them, okay?”

Renjun claps on the other side. “Good! Good. Talk to them. Let me know, okay? Jen, this is a great fucking opportunity.”

Jeno snorts. “Spoken like a true SM spokesperson.”

Renjun threatens, “Don’t _ever_ say that again.”

**;**

  
  


**i’m pacing back and forth, wishing you were at my door**

_april._

  
  


Renjun is waiting outside the hall of his Integrative Studio class when the cherry blossoms start to officially bloom, bloom, bloom, an aching comparison to the flowers in his chest that refuse to open despite his attempts to water them and display them under the sunlight.

“You never visit me on campus,” Jeno remarks, raising his eyebrow. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah, well,” Renjun huffs, shoving a coffee can into Jeno’s hand. He swings his arm around Jeno’s shoulder and they start walking. “Maybe if your school wasn’t on a fucking hill. God, fuck. My lungs aren’t cut out for this.”

Jeno laughs. “So what’s so important that The Great Huang Renjun Trekked Up This Horribly Inhumane Hill just to come see me?”

“Come out with me and everyone tonight,” Renjun propositions, not bothering to ease into it. He stops in his tracks and looks at Jeno firmly. “And before you even reject it, you _have_ to. It’s almost your birthday. We have to go celebrate.”

“Jun,” Jeno sighs. “You know that’s not my scene.”

“It’s low-key! Yangyang’s party— and Jisung and Chenle are going to be there, too, and I heard Yangyang’s friends are really cool and—“

“Yangyang already invited me,” Jeno interjects. “And since when has Yangyang ever thrown a low-key party?”

“Come on,” Renjun urges. “You’ve been working yourself to the bone ever since—“

He stops himself, and Jeno raises an eyebrow at him.

Renjun rolls his eyes, huffing. “Look. I hate to say it like this, okay. But you’ve been working yourself to the fucking bone staying extra late at the company, and you’re already busy enough with school ever since you and Donghyuck broke up and it’s not, it’s not fucking healthy. Come out with us, tonight. You could— you could meet someone new!”

“I don’t _want_ to meet someone new,” Jeno furrows his eyebrows. “And I’m doing fine, actually.”

“Bullshit.”

Jeno frowns, “I _am._ I’m doing _great._ My studio project is going well, I got an A in my Sustainable Systems class, Soojin-noona is really considering all the input I have to give lately an—“

“Bullshit,” Renjun interrupts. “ _Bull. Shit._ Bullshit! Bullshit.”

_“Hey,_ that’s not nic—”

“Bullshit,” Renjun covers his ears like a child and raises his voice loudly over Jeno’s sentence. “Bullshit, Lee Jeno! Let me know when you’re done saying some bullshit.”

Jeno leans over removing Renjun’s hands from his ears, laughing. “Dude, what the fuck.”

“Bullshit, Lee Jeno,” Renjun shoves his pointer finger into his chest. “I mean it. These excuses you’re giving me doesn’t— doesn’t account for your emotional health, Jeno, and _locking_ yourself in your apartment and overworking yourself, shoving your _nose_ in all these work-related projects doesn’t mean you’re doing fine. All that’s going to do is lead you to burn-out at some point which, is already bad enough in itself, but you’re not taking care of yourself either.”

Jeno pushes Renjun hand away from his chest, frowning. “You’re so mean, Renjun.”

_Mean?_ Jeno, you wouldn’t know kindness even if it hit you in the fucking face,”Renjun says dismayed.

“Mean! Mean Huang Renjun. _So_ mean. Seriously. I’m hurt,” Jeno feigns anguish.

“Come out with us,” Renjun repeats. He softens his voice, “Please. Jeno, you know you can’t keep going on like this. It’s almost your birthday. It’s perfect.”

“I’m just—“ Jeno struggles to find the right words. “I’m not ready yet, Jun.”

Renjun sighs. “If you really don’t want to. Fine. I get it. I won’t make you.”

Jeno breathes out in relief. “Thank you.”

“I just—“ Renjun pulls at a loose thread from his cardigan. “I want you to know that going out and _doing_ something for yourself isn’t betraying you and your feelings, you know? You can still go out and try to have a good time and you wouldn’t be betraying yourself or the grief you’re still feeling over the breakup. It’s okay to give yourself something little by little.”

Jeno guesses that with years of friendship comes this feeling of knowing how the other always feels. Renjun always knows how Jeno is feeling, even if Jeno himself doesn’t quite know himself.

“I’ll go,” Jeno relents.

Renjun looks up, wide eyes. “Wait, really?”

“Surprised? Should I not go anymore?”

“No, no,” Renjun scrambles. He reaches over to pull Jeno into a hug before realising what he’s done, and pulls, nose wrinkled. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Jeno laughs. He teases, “If I had known I would get a Huang Renjun Hug out of this, I would’ve said yes earlier.”

“Fuck off,” Renjun says. “But seriously? You’ll go?”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself for you to believe me?”

“Promise you won’t back out?”

“I promise,” Jeno rolls his eyes.

“Okay, good,” Renjun beams. “I’ll pick you up tonight, okay? And who knows. Maybe you’ll meet someone!”

“You know I’m not ready,” Jeno mumbles.

Renjun waves it off, “Worth a try anyway. I was just kidding, you know. This isn’t— tonight’s not about meeting anyone, okay? I just want you to enjoy yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Renjun repeats. He smiles again before letting it drop. “Fuck.”

Renjun looks ahead to the steep downward hill they have to walk to get off campus. “Fuck this. Seriously.”

Jeno just laughs as they start their downward trek.

“Hey, Renjun?”

Renjun hums.

“Thanks,” Jeno admits.

Renjun just grins. “Carry me down this hill as a thank you?”

“Absolutely pushing it.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


The party, as per Yangyang’s signature, is not low-key. It’s the absolute opposite, actually. (As usual.)

By the time Renjun and him arrive to Yangyang’s front door, the door is not even closed, but ajar, the bass spilling out into the hallway of his apartment floor, yet somehow, none of the neighbors seem to care much.

Renjun pushes the door open, to something that’s not quite chaos, but looks like is going to spill over to chaos any second. It’s the worst kind of party to drop into— one that keeps you on edge. Renjun loves it.

Jeno is starting to regret saying yes already, wants nothing else but to be back at home, his nose in some assignment that’s not due months from now. For Renjun though, he forces a smile on his face.

“God, I fucking love this song,” Renjun yells, throwing his leather jacket onto the coat hangars.

“It’s because you fucking produced it,” Jeno accuses, laughing. 

Renjun just laughs in return, pulling Jeno towards the kitchen. “The talent that oozes from my body.”

“You make me sick,” Jeno retorts, letting himself get dragged by the elbow.

“Hey guys,” Renjun says, stopping in front of Yangyang and Jisung by the kitchen, mixing some drinks together. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Who chose to play this song? Taste.”

“Remind me to tell Guanheng to remove every single song produced by you off his playlists,” Yangyang groans. “Fuck giving you any royalty money.”

Renjun throws up the middle finger. “Fuck you. I know you’re my biggest fan.”

Yangyang laughs. “You wish!”

He pours the liquid from the mixer into two different plastic reusable cups, handing them each to Renjun and Jeno respectively. He turns to Jeno. “And how are you? Didn’t think you’d actually show up! Haven’t seen you in awhile. Where have you been?”  
  


Jeno accepts the drink with a thanks. He shrugs, “Here and there. Nice cups. What happened to the red solo cups?”

“Haven’t you heard, Jen?” Jisung pipes up. “Environmentally aware is the new in,” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Reusable cups only!”

Jeno snorts, reaching over to ruffle Jisung’s hair. “And how are you? What are you doing here? How’d you manage to sneak out?”

Jisung laughs, tilting his cup towards Jeno. “Water only. Plus Yangyang’s vetted every single person here and said they were cool so,” he shrugs. “If I get caught it’s his ass on the line.”

Yangyang feigns a look of fear on his face. 

“Nah, don’t worry. Everyone here _is_ cool,” He leans forward, and Renjun, Jisung, Jeno, all lean forward to hear him better. He drops his voice. “Besides, all of them are like us, anyway.”

Renjun snorts, “Like us?”

Yangyang grins and shrugs, “Trainees. Used-to-be trainees.”

Renjun hums. “Interesting.”

“Anyway,” Yangyang pours himself his own drink. “I’m going to go check-in on my guests. Have fun. Be responsible! I have some hot chips around here somewhere. Hey, Renjun, come with me? I have someone to introduce you to.”

Renjun looks at Jeno, “Ah, no I’ll catch up with you late—“

“It’s _fine,”_ Jeno says. “Me agreeing to come doesn’t mean you have to babysit me, Jun.”

Renjun shakes his head, “Still, I don’t want you to be by yourse—“

Jeno pushes Renjun towards Yangyang. “Take him. Away from me. Please.”

“Hey—“ Renjun frowns, but he’s already being dragged away by Yangyang.

And then, they’re gone. Jeno takes a swig from his drink. He blinks quickly at the bitter taste. Somehow, it’s fitting.

“I’m glad you’re out of your apartment, hyung,” Jisung mumbles, and Jeno turns to look at him, a smile ghosting his face. 

“Yeah?”

Jisung nods, smiling into his cup, “You were getting pathetically sad.”

“Hey,” Jeno frowns, laughing lightly and shoving at Jisung’s shoulder. “You’re so mean to your hyung.”

Jisung laughs. “I’m kidding. Kinda.”

“Kinda,” Jeno muses.

“Hyung, I just don’t want you to be sad forever,” Jisung admits. “It just feels like— I’m worried— we’re all worried about you, you know.”

Jeno hums, “I’ll be okay, Jisung. Don’t worry about me.”

“When?”

“When?” Jeno repeats. He thinks about how he wants to know the answer to that himself. Instead, “Soon.”

Jisung hums. “Good.”

They stay quiet for a few moments, leaning their backs against the kitchen counter and looking out towards the living room where a majority of the people congregated.

Jeno sees Chenle and Jisung eyeing each other from across the room, but Jisung sticks firmly by Jeno’s side.

He sighs, “Go.”

“Huh?” Jisung turns to look at Jeno.

“When I told Renjun I didn’t need any babysitting, I _meant_ I didn’t need any babysitting,” he remarks. “You don’t have to stick next to me. I’ll be fine.”

“Hyung…”

“Go,” Jeno repeats.

Jisung looks like he’s still considering, so Jeno sighs again loudly and pushes Jisung towards the living room. Jisung yelps.

“I’ll come find you later, hyung!” Jisung turns to him one last time. Jeno rolls his eyes, and waves him off.

  
  
  
  


It’s a lot of moving around, smiling lightly with just enough conversation that people don’t look at him weird before he stumbles onto Chani a couple of hours later.

He’s a lot like Donghyuck, is the first thing Jeno thinks and he hates it. But he can’t help it. Chani in his silk button down, and bright eyes, and down to the fucking _Chelsea boots_ remind Jeno of Donghyuck.

Not to mention the quick wit.

“Who are you? Harry Styles?” Jeno says, when he meets Chani in line for the bathroom. He’s not drunk enough that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he _is_ tipsy enough that his mouth keeps rambling, unfiltered.

He leans his head against the cool wall.

“Who are you? Pathetic heart-broken drunkard?” The other retorts, raising his eyebrow.

Jeno narrows his eyes, “Do I know you?”

A beat, and the other is laughing loudly. “So I was right? Bro.”

Jeno furrows his eyebrows. “Have we met? Who the fuck are you?”

The guy shrugs.

“Don’t think so. And besides your supremely fucking insulting comment,” he pauses. “I’m Chani.”

“Jeno,” Jeno returns. “So I don’t think I know a Chani.”

“And I don’t know a Jeno,” Chani teases, voice soft and sweet, _sweet like Donghyuc_ —

“Then how did you…”

Chani shrugs. “Saw you moving around the whole night. _Incredibly_ sad looking. Also, who knows? Maybe I just read people well.”

The glint in his eye is telling.

“Hey,” Jeno protests, but he laughs along. For the first time that night, he sees blue. “I worked really hard to look like a decent human being having a bare-minimum enjoyable time.”

Chani snorts, “And only a guy who has been severely heart-broken would try that hard to look like he has been having the _bare-minimum enjoyable time.”_

“You saw me moving around the whole night? You were watching?”

Chani has the decency to look away, tips of his ears red. “So, maybe you were cute.”

“Were?” Jeno’s mouth filters out.

“Getting to know you is really kind of changing my mind here,” Chani grins.

Jeno laughs. “Yeah?”

They hear the toilet flush, and then the bathroom door opens.

Chani takes one last look at Jeno before shrugging. He pushes the door open and looks back. “Maybe. Could change my mind back though.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Chani and Donghyuck may have a lot of similarities that Jeno can bare to stand, but kissing Chani is nothing like kissing Donghyuck.

Despite his sweet smiles, and soft features, Chani kisses rough— everything about him. Nothing like Donghyuck.

“God,” Chani pants out, and digs his fingernails deeper into Jeno’s waist. It burns, and Jeno doesn’t know if it’s the enjoyable type of way.

Jeno pushes forward, licking into the roof of the other’s mouth, and his lips— they feel bruised, and even if the alcohol was still flowing through his veins, he’s aware he’s pressing his lips against Chani’s so hard in an attempt to erase Donghyuck from being painted all over his skin.

“You’re good Lee Jeno,” Chani admits, breathlessly, and he leans his head back as Jeno pushes his face into the crook of his neck, licking, desperately, helplessly. Anything to erase this blue.

“Yeah?” Jeno breathes out, but everything about this— everything about this feels wrong, even if his brain is telling him that it’s not. Chani’s a wonderful person. He knows this. He knows this.

He’s starting to only feel like half of what he’s supposed to be, though.

“ _So_ good.”

Chani wraps his arms around Jeno’s waist and pulls him closer. He paws at Jeno’s jaw and pulls his face back up to his lips.

“Wanna kiss you,” Chani mumbles, before pushing himself forward to kiss Jeno.

Jeno shuts his eyes tighter, presses closer, lips fumbling against each other but, but— it’s too much.

It’s too much.

Jeno doesn’t even realise he’s mumbling _Donghyuck_ against Chani’s lips.

Chani doesn’t say anything, just continues to lick into the roof of Jeno’s mouth.

It’s all too much, not when no matter how hard Jeno is kissing, no matter how tight he presses his eyelids together, Donghyuck is permanently painted across his eyelids.

He plants his hands against the wall and pushes away from Chani. Chani opens his eyes and blinks back at him, eyes glazed, surprised.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno fumbles out. Blue, blue, blue. “I’m— I’m sorry.”

He steps back, running his hand through his hair. “I’m— god, I’m sorry— Donghyuck is—“

“It’s fine,” Chani interrupts, and he stands up straighter, adjusting his shirt that was ruffled by Jeno. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. And stop apologising, it’s fine.”

“No, you don’t understand— I’m sorry, it’s just—“

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” the other repeats, sighing. He looks at Jeno carefully, and fixes a kind smile on him. “We’re fine. Don’t you remember how we met?”

“Right,” Jeno falters.

“Look, don’t push yourself to hard to move on,” Chani says, ruffling his own bangs over his eyes. “Or to try to erase whoever you’re trying to erase. You’ll move on when you’re ready. Okay?”

“How did you—“

Chani laughs, “I told you I can read people well.”

  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**come and meet me in the sky**

  
  


Donghyuck and Jeno come together for the first time, and they are enamored.

Donghyuck at thirteen is loud and cheeky, a jolting type of tease that has everyone around him rolling their eyes at him (fondly, but they’ll never admit it). He sings almost everything that comes out of his mouth to the point where it makes even Doyoung whine about how _not everything has to be sung, not when we have almost six hours of training everyday._ He pulls practical jokes on anyone who’s gullible enough, somehow tricks the younger trainees who are equally as enamored to do the dirty work for him, so when the hyungs look for who played with them his hands are guilt-free, but still.

_Still,_ Jeno is enamored.

Jeno insists no one can blame him though, not when Donghyuck’s singing (his _real_ singing not like when he’s singing high-pitched and loud to make others laugh) a distinct type of coral blue, one that runs through Jeno’s veins under the sun, clear and ethereal, and shining, shining, shining. Not when Donghyuck teases Jeno in the practice rooms, in the canteen, in the dorms, but his eyes are kind, always kind. Not when Donghyuck talks to you, and looks at you, and makes you feel special, so special, like the stars connect, and the colors swirl together for that moment, that moment where Donghyuck looks at you with stars in his eyes.

No, Jeno insists no one can blame him.

And Donghyuck’s no different, not really.

Because yes, Jeno at thirteen is shy and spends most of his time cowering behind Doyoung, the only one he’s one hundred percent warmed up to, spends time hiding behind his long bangs, reading books in his bunk bed when everyone else is outside in the living room playing Twister, still shy, still adjusting, but.

But, Jeno also completely transforms in the practice room, his walls that are still rock solid and piled up high outside of the mirrored room crumbled to make room for something shining, something indescribable. And _who would ever think_ , Donghyuck watches in awe, _who would ever think_ , when this boy has no experience except for a few elementary school commercials.

Jeno, who blushes pink as a peach when anyone teases him, but lets out a sarcastic remark every once in awhile; like his tongue works faster than he realises, and everyone looks at him with fondness, happy his walls are coming down, finally coming down. 

Donghyuck finds it exhilarating, peeling layer after layer of one Lee Jeno. Finding out his talents far exceed a milk commercial; that he’s cheeky, just as cheeky as Donghyuck is, if not more; that he does small things like sneak a bottle of banana milk from the convenience store into Donghyuck’s backpack when they’re on the way back to the dorms from school, or when claps extra loud, the loudest he’s ever cheered when it’s Donghyuck’s turn at monthly evals.

This, it’s this.

Donghyuck and Jeno come together over the years, and they become enamored, so enamored, and it’s this, all of it.

It’s a coral blue, and no one can blame them.

  
  
  


**;**

**how much sorrow can i take**

  
  


_april._

It comes wrapped in a big, almost-as-tall-as-him, shiny box. Shiny, because it’s actually wrapped in some sort of bright baby blue wrapping paper, a red ribbon tied the top. It’s almost intimidating, how happy it looks when Jeno has no idea what’s even in it, and Jeno looks at it with wide eyes akin to a child on Christmas morning. Joyful and curious.

The delivery man pops out from behind the box, a sheepish grin on his face as the cart helping carry it rolls to an abrupt stop.

“Special occasion?” he asks, and Jeno’s mind is whirling too quickly with questions before he realises he has to step aside for the guy to be able to roll it into his apartment.

“Sorry, I—“ he opens his door wider and steps aside, the guy not much older than him nodding in thanks before he rolls the package into Jeno’s apartment. “Um, yeah. It’s my birthday today.”

The deliver guy hums, “What’s the lucky number?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Well someone seems to love you very much,” the delivery man grins, and he smoothly slides the box onto his hardwood floor, sighing, before he sits up straight again.“Happy birthday, sir.”

Jeno barely has time to echo out a confused _Thanks!_ before the guy is out the door, taking his wheeled contraption along with him.

He shuts the door behind him and turns to eye the package owlishly.

His first instinct is to rip off the packaging like a child, who could possibly have given him a gift this _extravagant_ , and _what could it possibly be, why is it so shiny—_

It could also be Renjun hiding out in the box waiting to scare Jeno shitless early in the morning. 

He paces in front of the box, thumb in his mouth, biting around the loose skin in thought. He belatedly stops his grabby hands reaching towards the box to snap a picture of the box and send to Renjun.

**to injun:**

[image attached]

if ur going to come out from this box to scare me shitless get out now before i punch u in the 

face and give u a black eye im warnin g u

**from injun:**

[image attached]

unfortunately i am in the studio recording for tyong hyungies mixtape rn 

i look cute tho rite

w at the fuck is tht

who gave u smthn so big..

oh n happy birthday my sweet pea 

  
  


Jeno frowns. It’s not Renjun who sent it over? Well. That peaks his interest even more. 

He entertains the idea of his other friends sending over a gift, and he considers going through his contact list to ask them who sent it as he particularly hated surprises, but his impatience gets the best of him and he drops his phone on the couch with a _thanks junnie :)_ text.

He eyes the box again, the baby blue wrapping paper almost intimidating to him ( _blue, blue, blue, shades of blue are—_ ) but curiosity gets the best of him and he reaches forward to carefully peel off the wrapping from the corner of the box, the almost-as-tall-as-him box, that somehow, for some reason, makes him feel—

An unnerving red envelope sits stuck to the inner, less extravagant, cardboard box with a piece of tape. In the corner of the envelope sits a logo of some sort of gift-wrapping company, which explains the extravagant outer packaging for a delivered package.

Jeno wonders who could possibly be sending him the present again, and he briefly wonders why his mother has decided to go all out this year— it’s not as if twenty-one was a particularly important year. 

He picks off the envelope and opens it up to reveal an off-white card stock paper with a typed letter.

  
  


_to my baby,_

_happy mcfuckin birthday!!!!!!!!! this is a surprise, isn’t it?_ ㅋㅋㅋ _you weren’t expecting it right? 10 million won bike— i’m the best boyfriend, right?_ ㅋ 

_a couple of days ago (i know, i am ordering this a bit early, but i can’t help it.. i’m way too excited for this_ ㅋㅋ _) you showed me this bike, told me it is one of those insane type of things you want to own, those type of fever dream materialistic items you just want to have… i told you i would get it for you but you told me to stop teasing…_

_surprise!! i wasn’t teasing_ ㅋㅋㅋ _now that i got this for you, you have to take me everywhere with this, ok? you better it was almost as expensive as a car_ ㅋㅋㅋ _my very own butler_ ♡ _take me all over seoul on your cool ride hehe… i bet i can even fit in the basket!_

_anyway i hope you like this gift and you get to use it lots… maybe even participate in tour de france so i can date some marathon winner and i can be your trophy boyfriend_ ♡ ♡ _my ultimate dream_ ♡ ♡

♡ ♡ _again, happy happy birthday my pretty pretty boy buu buu_ ㅋㅋ _i love you so so much!_ ♡ ♡

— _your baby 4 lyfe,_

_hyuck_

( _p.s. i wasnt kidding about wantin to be your trophy boyfriend ;) get started on those training sessions baby!)_

  
  
  


Space blue feels like mistakes you keep repeating over and over again in your life. It feels like rules that go unfollowed, and being the farthest you’ve ever been from home, helplessness painted everywhere— all the way up over your eyelids so you still see it even when you close your eyes.

> (“Babe, look at this,” Jeno had said, thrusting his phone in Donghyuck’s sleepy face. New Year’s had just passed, meaning award shows and Gayo’s had passed and gone. NCT wins Artist of The Year Daesang at MAMA, and Album of The Year Daesang at MMA, and SM had given NCT a month long break in January as a reward for their hard work. Donghyuck had spent the past two weeks in Jeno’s bed, refusing to leave.
> 
> Donghyuck lifted his head from the pillow belatedly and squints at the dimly lit screen. “Whatsit?”
> 
> “This bike,” Jeno responds, taking his phone back and scrolling through the features, “Cool, huh?”
> 
> “Want it?” Donghyuck questions.
> 
> Jeno laughs, “It’s ten million won.”
> 
> Donghyuck’s eyes shoot open, “So?”
> 
> “I can’t stand you,” Jeno snorts.
> 
> “I’ll engrave my name on the side. Big fat LEE DONGHYUCK,” Donghyuck grins.
> 
> “Don’t buy it for me for no reason.”
> 
> “I could’ve gotten it for you for Christmas then! You should have told me earlier.”
> 
> _“No_ ,” Jeno emphasizes, clicking away at his phone. “Besides. It’s just those things you want to own but will never own in your life, you know. Like, _wah, I own this, fucking cool,_ stuff. I don’t really need it.”
> 
> Donghyuck moves closer to nudge Jeno’s arm with his head, and Jeno moves his arm up and over Donghyuck’s body for Donghyuck to settle his head in Jeno’s chest. “Your birthday, then.”
> 
> “Stop teasing,” Jeno laughs.
> 
> Donghyuck hums. “Only three months away.”
> 
> “ _Don’t_ get it for me, Hyuck,” Jeno repeats.
> 
> Donghyuck pouts, “You take the fun away from everything.”
> 
> Jeno snorts.
> 
> “You win Daesang once during MAMA, and here you go, offering to buy me a ten million won bike,” he teases. 
> 
> “It’s all for you, baby,” Donghyuck responds, not missing a beat.)

  
  


There is no LEE DONGHYUCK on the bike, but there is a a L.JN+L.DH against the black steel right under the cushy seat, small and almost unnoticeable, but Jeno catches it with the glint that his fluorescent lights give it.

This blue creeps up starting from Jeno’s toes, and reach up, up, up, clawing its way through his skin; up, up, up, and settling over his chest like dark blue clouds settling like a fog. Unknown and regretful, so regretful it hurts his chest and he’s letting the card stock paper flutter to the ground by his bare feet; suddenly cold against the hardwood floor.

  
  
  
  
  
  


⇤

**i’m a star and i’m burning through you**

  
  


“Are you really going to leave?” Donghyuck demands, but it’s a lost cause, considering the luggage that’s piled on Jeno’s bed ( _was_ Jeno’s bed). Donghyuck sits next to the pile, hand clutching the handles of the luggage so tightly it looks like he won’t ever let go.

The other trainees piled out of the room with sympathetic smiles to give them some privacy when Donghyuck walked in, bare feet dragging along the floor, head hanging, pout evident. 

“Baby, we talked about this,” Jeno sighs, gathering the last bits of things he has on his shelf into his arms.

“Yes, but are you really doing it?” Donghyuck frowns, laughing except not really, because he knows what this, what this all means. Softer, with all demands gone from his voice, he says, “I mean, they still wanted you to stay— it’s all we’ve worked for for almost five yea— It’s really not your dream anymore?”

Jeno drops his things onto his bed next to Donghyuck, next to his suitcases, small things from his deodorant to a photostrip of him and Donghyuck at the arcade, smiles and shy cheek-kisses, to the small Ryan keychain that Jisung bought for him once when they snuck out to Myeongdeong. 

He squeezes in into the small empty space between the pile and Donghyuck on his bed, and Donghyuck moves over to let him sit properly before dropping half his body into Jeno’s lap, Jeno reaching over to steady and wrap his arms around Donghyuck’s waist as if on auto-pilot.

“I don’t know my dream anymore,” Jeno confesses, and saying it again leaves his chest feeling like it’s been wrapped over and over with cling wrap so he can barely breathe.

It’s the only other time he’s said those words besides the night he and Donghyuck talked about it before, the night Donghyuck gets into NCT, the night the managers tell them where their paths diverge; and he whispered into Donghyuck hair as Donghyuck squeezed into Jeno’s twin bed, head in his chest, crying, crying, crying.

(“Somewhere along the way, I lost it. I don’t know my dream anymore, Hyuck, but I don’t think it’s here,” he had whispered, and Donghyuck had cried, cried because the blue that you feel when your loved one is lost at sea, not knowing if they’ll ever make it home is a different kind of blue, a different kind of hurt to experience.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck had replied, and Jeno feels, feels, feels—

He doesn’t _feel,_ not until Donghyuck is whispering sorry, and he feels _frustrated_ because why are you saying sorry, why do you keep saying sorry when—

“Why are you saying sorry?” Jeno says, “Baby, I’m so fucking proud of you. You’re a star.”

“Not a star yet,” Donghyuck sniffles.

“You’re always a star,” Jeno says. “Always. You’re burning through me, baby.”)

  
  


“When do classes start?” Donghyuck asks instead, hooking his foot under Jeno’s knees, reaching over to play with Jeno’s fingers, rough, and calloused.

“Semester already started, but they’re letting me start next week since it’s only the second week of classes right now.”

“My uni boyfriend’s going to be an architect,” Donghyuck sing-songs, quiet.

“Maybe,” Jeno corrects.

When he decided to go back to school, pursue uni instead of wait around for this dream that he’s lost along the way to work out, he came across the architecture program and decided it seems interesting enough to do. He did well in shapes, and maths, and the _foundations_ of everything in high school, so maybe, maybe he’d like it.

“Maybe,” Donghyuck agrees.

“My boyfriend’s going to be one of the greatest idols South Korea has ever seen,” Jeno says in return.

Donghyuck lets out a loud laugh, a cackle almost, “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Jeno agrees.

They sit like that, entangled with one another, on top of Jeno’s blue-almost-grey sheets, for god knows how long, even if Jeno’s older brother will be coming soon to pick him up and take him to his apartment, his new home.

“Donghyuck,” Jeno whispers, because despite it all, despite it being his decision, despite their road diverging because of him, “we’ll be…”

“We’ll be okay,” Donghyuck finishes for him. He says it so surely. “We’ll be okay. This won’t change anything.”

“It will.”

“Not anything that matters.”

“It’s going to be hard.”

“Nothing worth it is easy,” Donghyuck easily responds back.

Jeno laughs— a laugh filled to the brim with hope. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” Jeno says, and he slots his hands under Donghyuck shirt and splays his fingers along the other’s ribs. He feels Donghyuck’s heart beat. “Okay.”

  
  
  
  


**_;_ **

**trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch**

  
  
  


_may._

  
  


_Google search,_ **how many shades of blue are there?**

 _Results,_ **officially, there are fifty-seven. the human eye can detect millions of shades.**

  
  
  
  


Renjun gifts him a Richard Siken poem book for his birthday and he’s not sure if Renjun is playing a practical joke on him, or if he’s being sincere and just unable to comprehend the nuances of how Jeno feels these days; so he takes it with a smile and tucks it into the shelf where the rest of the books that suddenly hurt too much sleep.

It stays there, for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, until one day he’s sitting curled up in his blue sheets, feeling particularly bad about himself, because sometimes that’s the only thing you can do, and he remembers the book.

And he thinks he’s already feeling bad about himself, what’s feeling bad about yourself while reading simple but flowery words, and he climbs over his sheets and plants his feet on his icy floor, and crawls over to his bookshelf because he still feels like staying curled into himself, and pries it out between his journals and other books about love that he bought when he was missing Donghyuck and didn’t know any better.

He crawls back into his bed, blanket covering his shoulders, and he leans against the wall next to him, staring at the cover. 

_Crush,_ it reads, and a hand is printed on the front cover, one that’s long and slender, and Jeno knows someone who’s fingers are also long and slender, and is something akin to a _crush,_ and his heart already feels like it’s too much—

The book easily gives way into a page opening, and Jeno finds a loose paper with Renjun’s handwriting wedged into the pages.

  
  


_jeno, this poem wasn’t in the book but it’s the same author._

_take care and happy birthday x_

  
  
  


_“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it— you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”_

Maybe Renjun is aware of how Jeno is feeling, but decides to gift him this book still, and maybe there is a meaning to it, meaning to all of this, meaning to his heart aching, meaning to this blue. So he reads the paper, over and over again, runs his fingers over Renjun’s handwriting, and flips the book back to the first page.

  
  


_Results,_ **inconclusive.**

  
  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**baby, take me to the feeling (i’ll be your sinner, in secret)**

  
  


Their first _date_ can be attributed to Renjun.

Renjun insists on it.

“You better remember this,” Renjun says seriously, pulling on his cap even lower on his face to hide his eyes, but Donghyuck and Jeno can see the smirk on his face. “You guys owe me.”

“Seriously?” Jeno asks.

They’re in Arriate, a cafe flower shop in Hongdae, right by the outskirts, just out of the way from all the tourists and high school students wandering around. It’s their favorite to go to when they have a break, when they don’t have to go to the company so soon to practice, the allure of hanging flowers, fresh and pressed alike, surrounding them.

Renjun turns towards Jaemin who’s ordering drinks by the counter, oblivious.

“He’s going to be done soon,“ Renjun says. “Go.”

“Are you su—“ Jeno starts, but Donghyuck is already wrapping his hand around his wrist, tugging, and Jeno is being pulled out of his seat, down the stairs of the cafe that leads out on the street.

Jeno struggles, huffing, surprised at the sudden movement, and he trips over his feet with Donghyuck muttering _hurry!_ as they slip down the stairs, piling out onto the street.

By the time they tumble out of the door, spring air hits them, and Donghyuck is giggling into Jeno’s shoulder, pulled close.

“You surprised me,” Jeno whines while Donghyuck shakes against his shoulder.

“Jaemin’s going to be so mad at us,” Donghyuck comments after they’ve finally stopped laughing.

They settle for pressing the back of each other’s hands against each other, pinkies intertwined hidden by their cardigans and button downs.

“Why are we hiding it from Jaemin, again?” Jeno giggles.

Donghyuck shrugs, wiggling his eyebrows. “More fun this way. Don’t you think?”  
  


Jeno laughs. “I don’t know. I guess. Probably only because we left Renjun to deal with the mess of Na Jaemin’s whining.”

Donghyuck snaps his fingers, “Exactly.”

“Are we assholes?” Jeno chortles.

“Probably,” Donghyuck says in return, and he turns to Jeno, laughing as he presses closer to the other’s side. “So what do you wanna do, baby? Watch a movie?”  
  


Jeno wrinkles his nose, “No offense. You have shit taste in movies.”

“Hey!”

“Well, it’s true!”

“Not what you say to your date, especially if it’s the first date,” Donghyuck accuses.

“It’s our first date?” Jeno asks.

“Is it not?”  
  


“You kissed me before our first date then,” Jeno frowns.

“So?” Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. He pushes his face into Jeno’s shoulder, hiding his laughter.

“I don’t kiss before the first date!”

“Really,” Donghyuck says.

“Really,” Jeno frowns.

“And who else have you dated to have that rule, Lee Jeno,” Donghyuck says lowly, sly grin on his face.

“You are _so mean_ to your boyfriend, Lee Donghyuck,” Jeno responds. He lets go of Donghyuck’s pinky for emphasis.

Donghyuck whines in return, slipping his pinky back into Jeno’s, intertwining, tightening, tightening. It feels like a blue akin to a breath of fresh air.

“If we go to the arcade, I’ll win you something as a sorry,” Donghyuck propositions, sweetly.

“Yeah?”  
  


Donghyuck nods. “Yeah, I’ll win you all the toys, baby.”

Jeno raises his eyebrows.

Donghyuck grins. “I don’t have my wallet, though. You’ll have to buy all the game coins.”

Jeno sniggers. “I knew it was too good to be fucking true!”

“Hey!” Donghyuck whines, pushing closer to Jeno, unable to control his laughter as well. “I’ll still win you all the toys!”

  
  


(Donghyuck doesn’t win him all the toys, but by the time they meet up with Renjun and a pouty Jaemin again, Jeno is carrying four teddy bears, two yellow bird stuffed animals, and four tamogotchis.

Jeno doesn’t share them with Renjun or Jaemin no matter how much they whined.)

  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**if i bleed, you’ll be the last to know**

  
  


_june._

How many times will he run into Donghyuck before it doesn’t hurt anymore, Jeno wonders.

In the second floor bathroom of the company, passing by the practice rooms, on the first floor cafe. 

The hole in the wall convenience store three blocks away to avoid the amount of fans who hang around the convenience store just across the company’s street. Isn’t Donghyuck supposed to be somewhere right now? _Paris_? _Vancouver_? He can’t remember.

It’s his fault, really. He has his headphones in, baseball cap pulled down to cover his dirty eyeglasses that sit on his nose. He’s rushing back because the trainees are set to come in less than ten minutes, and he’s rushing. 

Too quickly— everything he’s doing is too quick. He almost breaks Donghyuck’s nose by opening the convenience store’s door too quickly, clutching four triangle kimbap and a coffee can in his arms.

“Oh, Dong— I— Sorry,” he sputters out.

Donghyuck has a black mask on and a red beanie covering his silver hair ( _silver, silver, silver. his hair is silver now)_ and everything about where he starts and begins looks so soft, so, so, soft except—

Donghyuck eyes him with a sort of hardness that has Jeno almost flinching, and his fingers unconsciously tighten around the loose, red, thread hanging from his sleeve, wrapping around his pointer finger, over and over.

“Sorry,” Jeno repeats, and steps aside before Donghyuck can respond. He forces his stare to his feet, _left, right, left, right, forward, forward._ He pushes past Donghyuck head down, eyes glazed, yet barely gets ten feet away.

“Can’t you even say my name?” Donghyuck asks, voice cracking, and— oh, _oh._

Oh, because if only he knew. If only Donghyuck knew just how much his name went through his mind; if only he knew how many months he’s whispered Donghyuck’s name, whispers it into the skin of people under him— drunk enough that they don’t realise Jeno is biting someone else’s name into their burning skin (it feels more like a sting. a wretched type of sting), whispers it into wishes he blows into dandelions between the cracked pavements, whispers it into the wind that he hopes will carry him back to his memories.

“Do you hate me that much?” Donghyuck asks, this time, firmly, and he swallows loudly— loudly to drown out the sadness that threatens to spill over his lips.

The question rings in Jeno’s ears like pleading. He turns around, and Donghyuck has stepped forward, away from the store, closer to Jeno than he’s been in _so, so long,_ mask down, eyes tired. Sapphire blue. 

Sapphire blue is dark and tired. Resolute.

“Donghyuck,” he says softly. Donghyuck flinches. “You know— you know I could never hate you.”

“Do I?”

“I could ne— I don’t,” Jeno repeats. 

“Then?”

_Then why did we end up like this? Then why is this blue dark and unknown and lost? Why does this blue reek of loneliness? Then—_

“I’m sorry,” Jeno’s voice is broken and regretful, and he thinks about clear blue skies that have _Donghyuck_ painted all over it, the clear blue that washes along the shore, swirling around his ankles, the type of blue that brings you home. _Donghyuck, Donghyuck, Donghyuck._

He wonders if he could ever go back.

“Donghyuck,” he says again. Donghyuck flinches, and Jeno thinks about _can’t you even say my name?_ and how even if he does, he’s still hurting Donghyuck. Always, always, hurting Donghyuck. “I’m always sorry.”

Is it too late? To go back?

“Will we ever be okay?” Donghyuck asks, and when someone who passes by them turns towards him in recognition, he pulls his mask back up.

His eyes remain tired, still looking, always looking at Jeno.

Jeno doesn’t say how he wishes fate is out there— wishes that fate is rooting for them to be together. 

Jeno says instead, “We have to be, right? We will be.”

Donghyuck’s eyes crinkle. 

(This blue. This blue is unexplainable. This blue is every blue, dark, and scary, and unknown; and every blue, bright, and clear, and free. This blue is all of it. This blue is hope. This blue is resilience. This blue is love re-learnt.)

  
  


Jeno unwinds the red thread from his finger.

  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**all the bad days, they’re nothing with you**

  
  
  


It was Jeno who said it first.

Albeit accidentally, but nonetheless. It was Jeno who says it first, and he doesn’t regret it, not one bit, but he thinks about how embarrassing it is, the first time he says it, the first time it slips from his mouth. It moves like a cloud moving languidly against a clear blue sky, and Donghyuck has to stop and to give him a look before Jeno realises what he had said.

Donghyuck goes through a bad monthly eval. He’s sixteen already, but his voice is still adjusting, still growing stronger into what it could be, and his voice cracks. It completely throws him off, and when he goes into his dance portion of his evals, he stumbles over his left foot and nearly trips and crashes into Jaemin. The evaluators— their teachers, their coaches, their managers, everyone who they learn from don’t scold him, but they express how they’ve never been so disappointed in Donghyuck, and somehow. Somehow, that feels so much worse. 

He spends the rest of the day with a frown on his face, and when Jeno tries to slip his hand into Donghyuck’s during break, Donghyuck flinches away from him and goes out into the hallway by himself to catch his breath.

Jeno tries not to look too devastated at that, he should be more _understanding_ , he tells himself, but Doyoung shoots him a look of pity from across the room, so he knows it shows on his face. He clenches his jaw and looks away, inserts himself to the closest conversation nearest to him, and tries to laugh along to Taeyong’s re-telling of how Johnny’s mom won’t stop calling him, more than she calls Johnny himself.

It’s later that night, when Jeno is already in bed, under his covers. He hasn’t talked to Donghyuck all day, not when the other was avoiding almost everyone. It was understandable, he tries to tell himself, but he’s _him,_ and he thought Donghyuck would at least talk to him. It’s so jarring, in the three almost four years he’s known Donghyuck, he’s never— never felt so far from the other, never felt so lost. 

So when most of them head back to the dorms, no one says anything to Jeno when he insists on heading to bed early after Donghyuck slams the door to his own shared room, still distant.

He tries to force himself to sleep, Sicheng’s motto of going to sleep to avoid feelings and problems ringing in his ear. He hears the others outside in their kitchen and living room, rowdy and getting ready for dinner, so he squeezes his eyes shut tighter, like that will drown out their voices. The door opens and closes, and he assumes it’s Mark, or maybe Jaemin coming to change their clothes, so he lays still, as still as he can, in hopes they believe he’s actually asleep.

It’s a bit of rustling and then, “Are you asleep?”

Jeno shoots his eyes open.

Donghyuck is looking at him, eyes soft, not closed off and distant like it was all day, and he stands there, an over-sized t-shirt and loose shorts hanging off his frame, drowning him.

“No,” Jeno responds, shaking his head, and he moves to sit up and lean against the wall the bunk beds are propped next to. He opens his blue comforter up, a silent invitation.

Donghyuck easily slips into the space, between Jeno and his pillows, like he’s done it a thousand times before. (He has.)

They don’t say anything, not for a bit, until Donghyuck takes a sharp breath and lays his hand into Jeno’s. He doesn’t slip his fingers into the other’s like he usually does, clutching tightly. Instead it lays there, hesitant, questioning.

Jeno curls his fingers around Donghyuck’s first, squeezing, and Donghyuck looks up at him.

“I’m sorry.”

Jeno shakes his head, “I understand.”

“No— I just. I can get like this sometimes,” Donghyuck blurts out. His fingers press against Jeno’s knuckles harder. “I. I’m not always— I’m not always happy. I don’t always have enough energy to give to others. I try not to show it— I _don’t,_ because. Because I’m Donghyuck. I’m happy, smiling, practical joker, Donghyuck,” he says it like he’s reminding himself, “I mean— don’t get me wrong. That’s me, too. But— but. I get like this sometimes. I’m too hard on myself and I’ve gone so long without letting myself talk to anyone about it that I don’t— I don’t like showing this part of myself to anyone. I get tired easily, but I’m stubborn and hate asking for help. And sometimes I can get irrational. Just— like, really irrational, and I know I’m being so, but I’m in too deep, and I’m stubborn so I’ll be irrational until the end. And I— I love too much, far too much— my sister says she didn’t think there could be too much empathy in someone until I was born, and she says it’s too much— I’m too much—“

“Donghyuck,” Jeno says, softly, and Donghyuck pauses, Adam’s apple bobbing as he takes a breath and swallows. “Are you trying to scare me away?”

“No,” Donghyuck says. He stops. “Maybe.”

Jeno rubs his thumb in the crevice between Donghyuck’s thumb and pointer finger. He wants to almost laugh at the thought. “It’s not going to work.”

Donghyuck swallows again, “It’s not?”

“Not when I already love you,” Jeno replies. “Not when I already love you, like this. And I’ll love you even if you’re being irrational. Or stubborn. Or when you love too much. I’ll love you even if you don’t have energy to give, because, well, because it’s not— you don’t have to— that’s not something you have to do even if you think s—“ he stumbles over his words, “when you don’t have energy to give, it’s okay, because I’m here, and I love you, and I’ll love you then, too.”

Donghyuck stops. “You…” He lets go of Jeno’s hand. “You love me?”

Jeno pauses. His cheeks turn a blush pink. “Um. No.”

Donghyuck fights the grin threatening to creep up on his face, pursing his lips into a tight line. In a devastatingly saccharine voice, “You don’t love me?”

Jeno stumbles, “No! That’s not what I meant. I mean, I— I do, but I mean— like, only if— I mean do you love me t— I mean, like, I’ll still love you even if you didn’t. Love me. Back, that is— but wait, I don’t— this isn’t…“

Jeno stops, and Donghyuck can’t stop the huge smile on his face from making a home there anymore. Jeno frowns, “Are you going to just let me keep making a fool of myself?”

“Yes. Maybe,” Donghyuck is giggling now, an uncontrollable giggle that grows and grows and grows. Louder and louder, and when Jeno scrambles to get him to stop, slipping his ice cold fingers under Donghyuck’s shirt and onto his ribcage. Donghyuck vibrates under his fingers like a pastel blue seeping through the other’s skin. Donghyuck’s hand closes around Jeno’s wrist, comforting. “You _love_ me.”

“No,” Jeno protests, but his eyes are bright, so bright, and he has to bite his bottom lip to keep from grinning.

“No?”

He shakes his head, “Nope.”

“Hmm, okay,” Donghyuck moves towards the edge of the bed, and Jeno feels him slip from his hands. He points over his shoulder with his thumb. “I think I’m going to head to bed now, it was a good tal—“

“ _Hyuck,_ ” Jeno whines, tugging at the hem of Donghyuck’s shirt. Donghyuck starts laughing again. “You heard what I said.”

Donghyuck easily falls back into the space, as easy as Jeno’s hands sliding back under Donghyuck’s shirt, resting.

“You love me,” Donghyuck says again, and this time Jeno doesn’t protest.

“And so I do,” Jeno bites his lip to keep from smiling.

“You _love_ me,” Donghyuck repeats it like it’s the first time. He’s grinning wide, eyes sparkling, and he inches forwards, closer, closer, closer, to Jeno.

Jeno doesn’t meet him halfway, no. He doesn’t inch forward, closer to Donghyuck, sparkling, sparkling, sparkling. No, he stays completely still, anticipating, warm. Donghyuck moves closer, closer, closer, removing Jeno’s hand from his ribs and placing thumb on his own wrist. The thrum Jeno feels of Donghyuck’s heart, quickly, beating quickly, against his fingers, a familiar home.

“You _love_ me,” Donghyuck whispers again, and this time his head is tilted at angle that will fit perfectly against Jeno’s, just a few inches away. His breath tickles against Jeno’s lips, and this time, Jeno’s breath hitches.

“And you?”

“Me?” Donghyuck breathes out.

“Do you? Love me, too?” Jeno manages to say, the thin sliver of doubt and insecurity making way. But before it can bloom, Donghyuck’s lips are already against his. So, so, sweet, if it was anyone else it would be _too_ sweet. But it’s Donghyuck, and his lips feel like all the answers Jeno could ever need.

It doesn’t feel like their other kisses, fleeting, quickly in their dorm bathroom right after they brush their teeth; quickly when they volunteer to go down to the convenience store across the street to get more chips and they kiss against the building’s staircase, no cameras and just echoes of their breaths melting against each other; quickly in between dance practice and Jeno feels Donghyuck’s laugh vibrate against his lips as he nips at the other’s neck, Donghyuck breathlessly whispering, _no marks, you know, no marks._

No, this feels like a blueberry lollipop melting against your lips, sickly sweet, and you continue licking, licking, licking, sweetness tingling against your swollen lips. Donghyuck feels like this as he licks into the roof of Jeno’s mouth, climbing into Jeno’s lap, warm and, so, so sweet.

Jeno wraps his arms around Donghyuck’s waist, _tiny, tiny, waist,_ he thinks, as Donghyuck presses him up against the wall, arms coming to cage Jeno in.

“Oh my god,” Jeno moans against Donghyuck’s lips, and Donghyuck has the audacity to _laugh,_ a giggle bubbling against Jeno’s teeth.

He pulls away slightly. “Is that enough of an answer for you, baby?”

“I want to hear it,” Jeno confesses.

And so sickly sweet, just like everything else, “I love you.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course I do,” Donghyuck says. He leans forward to press a kiss to the corner of Jeno’s mouth. “I love you. I love you.” 

Jeno laughs. Clear blue rings in his ears, “You love me.”

“I love the way you make me feel, Lee Jeno,” Donghyuck whispers again, pressing another kiss to the other corner. “The way you make me feel…” His hands come up to press against the back of Jeno’s neck and it feels so warm. “I love the way I am with you.”

And _this._

This is an electric blue.

  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**please, could you be so tender?**

  
  


_august._

  
  


Fate is rooting for them, so it seems. Or maybe it’s a practical joke, really. Life has played enough jokes on Jeno for him to think so. You would even think he would recognise it by now. 

Donghyuck comes into his life again at the golden hour of summertime, _August_ , and it feels like the sun shining down on his skin, a perfect golden hue, and the clear blue from the ocean coming back to fill, fill, fill his lungs all the way up to his heart. It feels like a lens flare against the sunlight, a vibrant shine that blinds, but somehow you can’t turn away, because it’s blooming, blooming, blooming. 

  
  


Fate comes in the form of this:

He’s helping some of the younger trainees with EXO’s Call Me Baby choreography for practice, standing in front of them, eyeing their movements through the floor to ceiling mirror, _hyeongjun, mind your arms,_ and, _minho, your legs have to be faster,_ when Soojin slips inside, ever so quietly. He sees her through the mirror and looks at her with a questioning look, but she waves him off and waits for a temporary lapse in the lesson while the trainees practice by themselves, to pull him outside.

And fate. Fate— comes in words that sound like this:

“Jeno, I have a great opportunity for you,” Soojin is grinning. “It’s going to completely change your career forever, if it all goes well.”

Jeno’s interest is peaked, bubbling, but still, he has time to tease, “Do you know something about my senior thesis that I don’t?”

Soojin rolls her eyes, “Career _here._ You know I think you getting a degree is useless. You’re not going to be an architect. You’re doing great here.”

He’s already heard that many times within these walls when he was younger, but Soojin— like a lot of the other choreographers, doesn’t know that.

“So what it is it?” Jeno says instead.

“You’re going to choreograph,” Soojin is grinning widely now. “By yourself.”

“ _What?”_

“Just you. Well, we’ll be here to help, of course. But. You’re the main choreographer this time. We— they— wanted to try something new, have fresh eyes, a fresh dance, and I suggested you. I told them you would do great in choreographing this dance— it’s r&b, and I told them it was your speciality.”

“You’re lying to me,” Jeno manages to say, because this, _this,_ is different from just teaching foundational dance, and assisting the other choreographers, no _this,_ this is complete creative freedom, and faith, faith in _him,_ and—

“No,” Soojin shakes her head, smiling, “I’m not lying.” 

_“Noona_ ,” Jeno manages to say— it’s _all_ he can manage to say. 

“It’s a great opportunity. You know, if you do great for this project, you could be well on your way to choreographing more.”

Jeno knows, of course he does.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this for me,” Jeno squeaks out, unbelievably loud, and he’s throwing his arms around Soojin before she can blink again. “Seriously?”

Soojin laughs, and when they pull apart, she smirks, “I fought for you in that meeting, Lee Jeno. So. It’s all yours. Don’t let me down. My ass is on the line, too.”

“ _Fuck,”_ Jeno breathes out, and he feels his heart beating out of his chest, a _6/8_ beat, quick, vibrant. “Fuck. I can’t _believe_ — r&b track? For who? A group? A solo?”

“A solo,” Soojin confirms. “For an SM station.”

“It’s an r&b track? For who?”

“Haechan,” Soojin says, “his very first one, so it’s going to be a bit harder for you. You’re going to have to come up with an eye-catching dance, but I think you can do it, Donghyuck is really flexible with learning dances, you know that, and— are you okay?”

“Donghyuck?” Jeno echoes.

“Yeah,” Soojin nods, “I thought it would be great, especially because you guys have good chemistry together, right? I know you guys are close friends. I figured you would know what dance would fit him the most.”

“I’m going to choreograph Donghyuck’s first solo song?” Jeno repeats again, and it feels like tripping and falling, all air inside your body pushed out, your skin prickling, burning, burning, burning.

The first thought that goes through his head is _Donghyuck is having a solo? Finally having a solo?_ and then, _I’m choreographing it. I’m going to have to make a routine with his song, he’s going to dance something I’ve created,_ and then, _we’re going to have to work together, Donghyuck and I are going to have to work together, again._

Soojin nods, and she has the tact to look at him strangely, eyebrow raised. “Something wrong with that, Jeno?”

  
  


“I…“ Jeno falters.

Soojin waits, but her eyes—they’re looking at Jeno like they’re saying _tread carefully._

_Donghyuck, Donghyuck, Donghyuck._

Choreographing for Donghyuck, Donghyuck. Haechan. Donghyuck.

What does he want?

_What does he want?_

“No, of course not,” he clenches his fist and shakes his head. It’s no problem, he tries to tell himself, it’s just, just—

“Good,” Soojin takes one look at him before she’s grinning again, “because this is really a great opportunity for you Jeno, it’s going to be challenging but you’ll be fine. I believe in you.”

And just like that, it leaves Jeno feeling warmth in his toes again, coming up, up, up. His own choreography. His own project. And his senior believes in him. He can’t let this opportunity for himself go. The words of reassurance goes through his head a mile a minute now, _this is a huge chance for you, you have to do it, your creative work is being acknowledged, you just have to work with Donghyuck for a few weeks, it’s only a few week— just until he learns the dance, it’s only a few weeks, this is a door opening for you._

So, “Thank you. It really means so much,” Jeno says one more time, reaching out to give her one last squeeze, “I won’t let you down. I promise. I won’t. I really won’t.”

  
  
  


⇤

**kissed you once, now i can’t leave**

  
  
  


Donghyuck is leaning against a wall waiting for Jeno when he finishes his Design Studio lecture, an iced grape ade in his hand.

Jeno thinks he’s been there awhile, because Donghyuck’s shoulders have stiffened, and though he has a black mask on, his nose is poking out and is starting to turn a shade of red that borderline worries him.

Donghyuck is looking down at his phone swiping mindlessly but when he hears students piling out of the lecture hall he looks up, and immediately his eyes find Jeno’s.

He’s smiling, Jeno knows he is, even with the mask, because Donghyuck’s eyes crinkle, and the lines formed on his forehead soften, and it’s _this_ , this.

Jeno hasn’t seen him in so long. It’s been weeks, he thinks, and even if he talked to Donghyuck just this morning, it’s not the same, never the same as this.

He walks quickly, not so quick that it draws attention to them, but quick enough that when he’s counting the seconds in his head, counting to calm the breaths he takes, it only takes twenty seconds before he’s in front of Donghyuck. The edges of their shoes knock against each other, they’re standing so close that if Jeno leaned a few inches forward their foreheads would meet.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Donghyuck says, and his eyes are bright, so bright.

“What are you doing here?” Jeno says breathlessly, and he reaches out to touch Donghyuck’s elbow lightly.

He wants to pull the mask down from Donghyuck’s face, kiss him, kiss him, kiss him. Instead, he presses the fabric of Donghyuck’s coat between his fingers.

“Can’t I see my boyfriend?”

“You have no schedule today?” Jeno says instead, and his jaw is starting to ache from how much he’s smiled since he’s locked eyes with Donghyuck.

“I’m all yours today,” Donghyuck’s eyes crinkle again.

“You are?” Jeno raises his eyebrow, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“At least wine and dine me first, baby,” Donghyuck guffaws, and he hands the grape ade he’s holding to Jeno. There’s so much condensation around the cup, and there’s no more ice inside, so Jeno wonders how long he’s really been waiting.

“For me?” Jeno says sweetly, teasing.

“No one in their right mind except you would drink an iced drink in this weather,” Donghyuck mumbles, and they start walking.

They don’t hold hands, not here, not with hundreds of students bustling around, and Jeno has to clench his fists from reaching out.

“You shouldn’t have waited in the cold,” Jeno comments, sipping from his straw, “You’ll get sick.”

“Good,” Donghyuck says sweetly, “Then I’ll have to stay home to get better and I can sneak out and stay with you for two weeks while you nurse me back to health.”

Jeno snorts, “It’s all part of your master plan, huh?”

The back of their hands brush alongside each other. 

Donghyuck stops, looks down, frowning.

“You’re hands are freezing,”and before Jeno can blink, Donghyuck is reaching over to grab his hand, placing a heat pack into his palm.

It’s been weeks since they’ve touched each other, Jeno thinks, and all he can do is blink owlishly, blink at Donghyuck’s slender fingers wrapping itself around Jeno’s wrist, tugging, and how he feels warm, so warm, and he knows it’s not from the heat pack.

Donghyuck pauses his hand over the heat pack with Jeno’s palm under it, and slowly, slowly, his fingers find Jeno’s, wrapping Jeno’s fingers over the pack.

It’s an excuse to touch each other.

“I’m fine,” Jeno says, but he lets Donghyuck do it anyway.

“Stupid,” Donghyuck states. “You always forget to bring a heat pack with you and you still drink iced drinks even in this cold. Do you think you’re immune to the cold? You’re the one who’s going to get sick.”

“And then you can nurse me back to health,” Jeno repeats, an echo.

Donghyuck laughs, pulling Jeno’s wrist back into the pocket of the other’s coat.

“Stupid,” he says again. “Stupid Lee Jeno.”

“Yours.”

“Yeah. Mine,” Donghyuck nods, and the way Donghyuck looks at him, it’s so, so tender, Jeno think this time, there’s no blue that could possibly describe it.

A leaf, a lonely leaf, falls, falls, falls out of nowhere, settling right on the crown of Donghyuck’s head. It comes out of nowhere, all the trees around them are bare, and Jeno laughs, pushing his glasses higher up against his nose and reaching forward, forward, forward. He steps closer to Donghyuck, so close, the closest they’ve been in so long, and reaches out, pulling the leaf out of Donghyuck’s hair.

“Where did you come from?” Jeno comments, and he chuckles at how the frayed ends get stuck at the ends of Donghyuck’s hair. 

Donghyuck goes cross-eyed trying to look above him, and it follows, follows, follows, as Jeno pulls it out from his hair.

Jeno settles it on the palm of his hand, craning his neck sideways, blowing the leaf back out into the wind.

Donghyuck’s eyes still follow, and he’s still enamored as ever.

It’s so easy to crumble, like this.

“Jeno,” Donghyuck says quietly, and even if there’s still people walking around them, not busy, but just enough, Donghyuck pulls his mask down.

“Yeah?” Jeno says, busy looking at the leaf fly away, and when his eyes fall back onto Donghyuck’s, the air is knocked from his lungs. He feels dizzy.

Donghyuck doesn’t have to step forward to do it, they’re that close already, so instead. Instead, he leans forward, his hands reaching up to clutch at Jeno’s arm.

Instead, he leans forward, closer, closer, closer, face coming to a stop next to Jeno’s, and it’s tilted up. Tilted up slightly, because even if they’re the same height, Donghyuck’s posture is not good, was never good. It’s perfect anyway, because the way they fit, _oh the way they fit._

They’re so close, Jeno can feel Donghyuck’s warm breath against his cheek. It prickles.

It could be so easy.

And then—

“We _can’t_ ,” Jeno says softly, so softly, and it hurts, hurts in the way that his skin aches to be touched by Donghyuck, only by Donghyuck— not in any vulgar way, not in any explicit way; just aches to feel the other’s calloused skin against his, aches to feel the warmth that’s so familiar, aches to feel held, to feel had by the other.

He steps back and lets Donghyuck’s arm drop to his sides.

“We can’t,” Jeno repeats like he’s trying to convince himself, and the way Donghyuck looks at him, pained, leaves him feeling helpless.

Is it going to be like this forever?

Donghyuck looks disappointed, upset, hurt, all at the same time, and it _hurts—_ Jeno doesn’t know how to describe the feeling that carves itself into his chest.

“Donghyuck…”

“No. I know,” Donghyuck shakes his head. He closes his eyes, just for a second, before he’s opening them again, a smile on his face. “I don’t have the right to be mad. It’s my fault, anyway.”

“No one’s at fault,” Jeno frowns.

“You know what I mean.”

The smile is hardened, and Donghyuck’s eyes look so sad.

Donghyuck tugs his mask back onto his face and shakes his head, “In another world, right?”

“Hey,” Jeno says, and he intertwines his pinky with Donghyuck’s, tugging. Their coat sleeves fall back over their hands, over their pinkies, and they start walking again, pressed closed enough that no one bothers to look at where one of them ends and the other begins.

“In another world,” Jeno starts lowly. “I would have kissed you right on the corner of your mouth the moment I saw you waiting for me outside my lecture.”

Donghyuck’s breath hitches, but he looks straight ahead. “Yeah?”

Jeno’s pinky tightens around Donghyuck’s.

“In another world, I would have kissed you on the corner of your mouth as soon as I saw you outside. I would have kissed you on the nose, because it was red, and it was cold, and you— you deserve all the kisses in the world, probably even more I could offer you,” Jeno keeps his voice quiet, almost a whisper, but Donghyuck— Donghyuck hears all of it. “I would tell you you’re stupid, so stupid for waiting outside my class when it’s freezing outside, and _I’ll see you at home, so what are you doing here,_ and then you would have laughed, and told me to stop being so clingy, because I would have thrown my arms around your waist, and pulled you close, and my grape ade would have almost spilled all over your coat.”

“But I wouldn’t have minded anyway,” Donghyuck continues and he tries to hide the smile on his face. “Because you kissed me on my nose, and you brought so much warmth when you hugged me, so I wouldn’t have minded. And, in another world, when your hands are cold, because you stupidly always forget to bring heat packs with you, I would have pulled your hand into my pocket.”

“ _Lee Jeno,”_ Jeno imitates Donghyuck’s voice, just above a whisper, light, and teasing, and Donghyuck has to control his laughter. “ _Do you think you’re immune to the cold? I can’t keep chasing you around Seoul with heat packs. Honey, I’m busy too, can you please consider my feelings, I can’t keep worrying about you.”_

And Donghyuck _,_ Donghyuck can’t keep his laughter inside anymore, warm puffs of air coming out of his mouth, and Jeno feels like everything, everything in front of him is tilted; because the helplessness is still carved into his chest, but now there’s a sticker stuck over it called _hope,_ and he doesn’t know which one is worse, which one hurts more.

“And then we’d go to another cafe and I could hold your hand, really hold it,” Donghyuck says, “Not under the table. And I would force you to take a photo with me next to the window, and you would whine, ‘ _why, why, why do we always have to take pictures’_ but you’ll do it anyway because you love me.”

“Because I love you,” Jeno echoes, a confirmation.

“And when we leave the cafe, and you reach over to brush a leaf that fell on my hair,” and it’s here, here where Donghyuck’s breath stops, like it’s warning him if he wants to continue, warning him that it will hurt too much. “When you reach over to brush a leaf that falls on my hair, I’ll feel the pads of your fingers touching my wrist, right under my coat sleeve, and I’ll see the look on your face when you feel my heart pulse against your skin. And I’ll lean down, closer to you, because it’s the perfect moment. It’s the perfect day. It’s the perfect date. And that time you won’t say that _we can’t.”_

“Instead I’ll say, _Donghyuck,”_ Jeno’s voice is raspy now, the cold invades his lungs like it’s filling him up, “ _Donghyuck, you’re so pretty like this. Donghyuck, I’m cold. Donghyuck, do you know what will warm me up?”_

They pause on the corner of the sidewalk, and it’s quiet except for a few cars that drive by, engine blowing out steam against the icy cold. 

The pedestrian light is red, and Donghyuck fixes his stare on it, “What? What will warm you up?”

“A kiss,” Jeno says. “I’ll say, _Hyuck, a kiss right now will warm me up. A kiss would be nice. Donghyuck, kiss me.”_

The light turns green, and they continue walking, their pinkies still covered by their coat sleeves and Donghyuck tightens his grip on Jeno’s pinky as tight as he can.

  
  


For now, this is enough.

  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**this time, i’ll really love you harder**

_september._

  
  


The closest thing he gets towards Donghyuck’s solo at first is only what Renjun allows him to know. 

Renjun is the one who produces Donghyuck’s solo, high praise after he does remarkable on Taeyong’s mixtape, and when Jeno finds out, he tries to subtly tell the other to spill details of the song, but Renjun keeps shut. He doesn’t tell Jeno anything, even if Jeno tries to use the best friend card against him multiple times. And, out of everything, Jeno doesn’t ask how Donghyuck was while they worked together, afraid of what Renjun might tell him, but Renjun tells him anyway: that he had never seen Donghyuck the way he was when he was in the studio writing with Renjun, giving input wherever he can, because this solo was important not only because of what it can do for his career individually, because everything about it was something _more_ to Donghyuck.

Jeno is too afraid of what it could possibly mean.

And contrary to what Jeno expects, he doesn’t see Donghyuck at all until it’s their first practice together.

It’s jarring, Jeno expected a message from Donghyuck, a _can we talk?_ in between Soojin telling him and September coming into fruition, but it never happens, and Donghyuck never reaches out.

He supposes he could’ve, could’ve reached out himself so he doesn’t have to worry about how they’ll work together, but he doesn’t, because he’s him, and everything with the way they fell apart is his fault, and the problem he’s always had with reaching out, letting Donghyuck in.

Instead, in the three weeks from then until now, Jeno listens to Donghyuck’s track on repeat, and dances, and dances, and dances, and tries to ignore the nagging in his brain that tells him that soon, it’s time to play fate’s game.

In the first week, Renjun hands Donghyuck’s track inside a USB, an unreadable expression on his face, and though he’s bothered Renjun about it constantly, now that it’s finally pressed into his palm, he can’t seem to listen to it. It stays hidden in the bottom of his backpack for one week. It sits there, hidden in his backpack where it hides when he’s at home, and it sits there, hidden in his backpack when he’s at school and he sees it in passing when he’s stuffing his notes and his laptop back in his backpack. It sits there, in the dance studio, when he’s changing out of his sweaty t-shirt and he sees it while pulling out a clean one. 

It continues hiding there until Soojin stops by to ask him if he likes the song, has he started on the choreography yet, and he realises he’s wasted a week avoiding, avoiding, avoiding, and now he only two weeks left to come up with a complete choreography.

  
  
  


Week two is Jeno plugging in the USB into his computer late one night, and seeing **haechan_love_me_again.mp3** pop up onto his desktop. It’s Jeno pushing his rolling computer chair back, away from his desk after seeing the title, and pacing around his kitchen, pouring cup after cup of water, trying to bring up the courage to press play. It’s him settling back into his chair after multiple trips to the bathroom, words of encouragement running through his head after two hours, jaw set, determined. It’s him at three a.m, pressing play, and, and—

The instrumental filters through Jeno’s apartment, loud and clear through his speakers, and Jeno’s first thought is, _this is the music Donghyuck has always wanted to sing._ It’s the music Donghyuck has always wanted to sing, music that’s soft, but firm, music that’s not _loud,_ but loud in other ways, loud in the way it makes your heart thrum through your chest. The piano instrumental churns out a feeling Jeno hasn’t felt in months, and the beats hit him solid, like heavy waves crashing into rocks. It’s dizzying, already.

But it’s Donghyuck’s voice that has Jeno squeezing his eyes shut. So tightly, as if it will stop the hurt from painting itself on his eyelids. It feels, it feels, it feels—

It feels dangerous, Jeno thinks, the hopelessness. It feels dangerous, like this blue is painted in sorry skies. Donghyuck’s voice flows through the song, smooth, and painful, longing, and worst of all, flows through the song like a thousand _i’m sorry_ s. 

It comes in the form of the lyrics _it’s been a while, and now we’re standing in front of each other like this / i know i hurt you a lot / but could you love me again, and sometimes things get so crazy, i can’t take care of you / because of my own greed, this pressure gets to me_ , and the way Donghyuck sings it, so sickeningly sweet, when the lyrics are anything but, makes Jeno feel aware, all too aware of the empty spaces in his chest that never really filled itself back up in the past few months.

The second week is when Jeno finds out that the other side of the coin called love leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, scratchy. The second week is when he finds out helplessness tastes bitter, all too tangible.

  
  
  


The third week toes on the edge of recklessness. 

Jeno spends the rest of week two looping Donghyuck’s song that he downloads onto his iTunes library, and on the way to school, while he sleeps, while he’s cooking dinner for himself, it plays, and plays and plays. At first, he does it because he thinks it will hurt less, like it’s a flu shot where you inject yourself with the virus to be immune to it. It doesn’t work though, he realises when he’s on his two hundred eighty-secondth loop, and he finds that it still hurts just as much, finds that it still leaves his chest feeling hollow. It’s not until the third week does he start really working on the choreography, properly mapping out all the moves he envisioned throughout the second week replay.

Soojin constantly asks for updates during week three, and though she believes in Jeno, when the latter refuses to show her any part of the routine until it’s finished, Jeno starts to see uncertainty etched into her face.

It’s reckless, Jeno knows, giving himself a week to complete the whole choreography, _Donghyuck’s_ choreography. But if he was being honest, he had already known how he wanted to display the song through dance since the very first time he heard it. He had already known how he wanted it to go, since the very first time Donghyuck’s voice filters through his speakers, aching, and really, it was only a matter of putting it into fruition.

Week three is spending until four a.m in the dance studio, with his iPhone propped shittily against a water bottle facing the mirror, the song looping over and over again as he stumbles and falls and changes moves to fit with the song. It’s taking a break and pausing, knees bruised as he kneels on the floor, palms of his hand pressing into his eyelids because sometimes it’s too much, all of it, it’s _too much._

It’s the third week when he finishes the dance and he realises that fate is cruel, too cruel, the little game it forces you to play a midnight blue.

  
  


He shows the dance to Soojin on Sunday of the third week, peeking into her dance studio at eleven p.m at night and letting her know it’s ready— it’s complete. She smiles, a readying smile, and while he fumbles to plug in the aux cord to his phone, he says something along the lines of _noona, please go easy on me,_ and some other disclaimers that she laughs at, and says, _jeno, start the dance already._

The music starts, and when the starting instrumental plays, a low piano melody, the opening sequence meant to be graceful, he stumbles a bit, softly still, the pressure building up into his chest. But once the beat kicks in, a low beat, he transforms. Even he knows he does, because he gets lost in the music, lost in the way his body moves, lost in Donghyuck’s sickeningly sweet voice, fueling, fueling, fueling him, that it’s not until he’s belatedly trying to catch his breath, Soojin’s claps ringing through his ears, does he realise the music stopped.

“Fucking shit, Jeno,” Soojin breathes out, uncapping a cold water bottle and handing it to him, a grin on her face, “This is _it._ ”

“Yeah?” Jeno’s eyebrows go up, eyes bright.

“I mean, there’s some suggestions I have but god, it was good. Really good,” Soojin nods, all traces of uncertainty gone. “The form, your stylistic choices, it’s everything this song needs to be visually. Jeno, this is so fucking good.”

“Thanks,” Jeno responds. It all feels unreal. “I know I have some cleaning up but I was hoping you could help me with it. And I had this idea— with the formation, I don’t think there needs to be a lot of background dancers. I was thinking just two other people behind Donghyuck. Like a triangle, almost? I— I was hoping Jinyoung and Hwiyoung could do it.”

Soojin nods, “Yeah, definitely. I don’t think this song is meant for many background dancers. We could start cleaning up tonight, fix the formation tomorrow and maybe show to Donghyuck by Tuesday? He needs to learn this by this week.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Soojin puts the song on loop, a lower volume, and stands in front of the mirror with Jeno.

“The part in the pre-chorus, I think you can use more control,” she starts.

Jeno nods, “I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know how I could— how I could fix it, though. I really want to keep this one move,” he demonstrates it, his arms moving fast around him coming into his chest, while his lower body move in a control manner, stepping to the side, “but…”

“Your arms take the attention away from the overall move,” Soojin states. “Good and expressive, but your arms are too everywhere. Don’t move your arms to far from your body— it comes back into your chest, right, so when you extend it out in the first place don’t open so wide.”

Jeno hums, “Like this?”

He does the move again, except this time his arms don’t extend too far. It matches his lower body well, and Soojin nods in agreement as she watches in the mirror.

“Good.”

They work like that into the rest of the night, going through the choreography, Soojin giving her input where she thinks it’s needed, discussing formations and where Jinyoung and Hwiyoung were going to move around, and after they film a video with the final routine to send to the higher-ups, they’re collapsing on the floor against the mirror, breathless. Jeno sticks a cold water bottle against his head.

“Great job. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Soojin teases. “This— this is, everyone will really love this.”

“Do you think Donghyuck will like it?” The question spills out of him like a confession.

She looks at him weird, “Of course he will.”

He hums in response.

“The song— this was easy to do because of how good the song is,” Jeno says.

Soojin nods, “Renjun and Donghyuck did a good job, didn’t they?”

Jeno nods in agreement.

“I wonder who hurt Donghyuck that much,” Soojin muses, stretching her legs out next to him.

And in the heat of happiness, Jeno almost forgets helplessness, crawling into his chest and making a home like an old friend.

  
  
  
  
  


Tuesday rolls around after he skips all of his lectures on Monday to work with Jinyoung and Hwiyoung on learning the dance, and he’s— he’s _nervous._

Soojin and Donghyuck are coming to see the dance, but Soojin is only there because Jeno had begged her to be there, at least until Donghyuck’s sees the full choreography under the guise of _moral support._ She had agreed, but told him she couldn’t be there for when he actually teaches Donghyuck— she had _better things to do,_ she had muttered, rolling her eyes.

It’s as good of a bargain as he’ll ever get with Soojin, so he agrees, and decides to ignore the prickly feeling all over his skin until he has to be alone in a room with Donghyuck.

It feels worse, knowing that Donghyuck has never tried to reach out, and it makes him feel like he’s the only one who feels like the world is ending, right at the edge of his fingertips.

  
  
  
  


Jeno is checking, double-checking, triple-checking Jinyoung and Hwiyoung’s dance moves as they go through the choreography multiple times when Donghyuck stumbles into the practice room, laughing at something Soojin says. It falls short when he sees Jeno eyeing him from across the room. It falls short on his lips, and before Jeno can even begin to comprehend Donghyuck, _this_ Donghyuck who looks slimmer, more _tired_ , with ash-brown hair different from the silver now— before he can begin to comprehend this Donghyuck; Donghyuck is fixing a neutral look onto his face and bowing at Jeno.

“Thank you for working on this dance,” Donghyuck says after he bows, polite, distant. Jeno tries not to let the look of surprise on his face linger. Donghyuck feels so different. “Soojin-noona told me it’s good.”

Jeno’s eyes find Soojin, who is fixing a proud grin at him.

He clears his throat. He’s not sure how to talk to Donghyuck like this. “I— yes, I suppose it is.”

“Shouldn’t you have more confidence in your choreography, _Jeno-ssi?”_ Donghyuck voice filters out, and something about how polite it is, how robotic this all feels, makes it feel even worse, makes everything feel transactional. Everything is so stiff.

Jeno blinks at him in surprise. Even Soojin, who knows just that Jeno and Donghyuck are good friends, blinks in surprise at the formality.

“Um, I guess I do,” Jeno says slowly. “I…“

He doesn’t know what to say. Donghyuck raises an eyebrow at him.

“I hope you like it as much as I do,” Jeno says instead.

Donghyuck nods to that and walks towards the mirror, fixing himself on a chair, Soojin following.

“Um,” Jeno starts. He feels like he’s doing a presentation, or another monthly eval that he hasn’t done in _years,_ and everything about it feels so much more jarring, dizzying, because this is _Donghyuck._ This is Donghyuck sitting in front of him, anticipating. “I’m going to— I’m going to start now.”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, just smirks, and Jeno feels so, _so,_ fucking embarrassed at himself. Donghyuck can be so cruel, when he wants to be.

He looks towards Jinyoung and Hwiyoung, before they nod at him, reassuring grins on their faces. It makes him feel better, only slightly.

He settles himself in the middle, forcing his joints to relax, and.

Soojin starts the music for him.

It's easy to get lost in the music— in Donghyuck's voice. If there is any magic at all in this world, and that the magic is out there, rooting for him, Jeno believes it comes in the form of this. It's the way his mind stops working, and his heart— the low _thump, thump, thump,_ becoming a resounding beat throughout his body as it finds its way into the crevices of Donghyuck's voice, weaving throughout the piano instrumentals and low synths. It's the way his body responds to Donghyuck's voice, the lyrics, aching all the same, aching like the first time Jeno ever heard the lyrics.

This blue.

This blue is a forget-me-not flower blooming from Jeno's heart, blooming, blooming, blooming, intertwining itself into a vine all the way over to Donghyuck, whispering, _do you remember, do you remember this, do you remember us?_ A true blue, ringing of memories, and aching with bare tenderness.

This blue is painted in Jeno's choreography, from the start to the finish, and it pulls him in so suddenly, he barely realises when the music has faded out, and his body has stopped moving.

  
  


When he finishes, it’s electric, the way his eyes gravitate towards Donghyuck’s eyes, searching, searching, searching. He’s breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath, and it’s dizzying, so dizzying— all of it. But still, when he finds Donghyuck’s eyes, it all comes to a standstill. Because, because—

The way Donghyuck is looking at him, _oh the way Donghyuck is looking at him—_ they both know.

Donghyuck’s song is made for him, and Jeno. Jeno’s dance, the yearning shown in the way his arms flow, the way he stumbles, the way his eyes glint as he moves through the choreography— it’s Donghyuck’s, it’s all for Donghyuck. 

  
  
  
  


It's a cruel guessing game with fate from there.

The music fades out, and Donghyuck is staring at Jeno, staring at him with nothing but tenderness, and it’s—

It's too much.

Jeno clears his throat, and looks away, fixing his eyes on the toes of his sneakers, bowing profusely. He hears Jinyoung and Hwiyoung breathing heavily next to him, and Soojin clapping loudly, echoing throughout the room.

“Thank you,” he says instead, quietly, and it's a quick ten second pep talk with himself, before he has the courage to look up at Donghyuck again, who remains quiet and unmoving.

“Didn't I say it would be fucking great?” Soojin says to Donghyuck. “I think Jeno here really pulled through and did a great job.”

Time feels like it's pulled from each side, stretching, stretching, stretching, as Jeno waits to hear Donghyuck's thoughts.

Donghyuck eyes Jeno head-on, steadily, always the braver of the two, and Jeno has to internally fight with himself not to tear his eyes away. Donghyuck's eyes still shine, even now.

But Donghyuck's voice betrays him, because shakily, “Thank you.”

And, that—

That wasn't what Jeno is expecting at all. 

“Thank you?” He echoes.

“Thank you for giving me this,” Donghyuck confesses. “Allowing me to have this. It’s beautiful. It's really just— You've done— it's, wow. You've done a great job.”

He feels Jinyoung and Hwiyoung pat his back at Donghyuck's approval. Soojin is grinning at him, next to Donghyuck.

"Oh," Jeno responds, because he's not sure what to say, not sure how to respond when Donghyuck's song does all of it— all of the work. Softly, "Your song is beautiful, is why. It was easy because your song— it's beautiful.”

Donghyuck looks taken aback, and Jeno cannot possibly comprehend why he would be taken aback, when everything he says is true, not only true, but matter-of-fact. Donghyuck looks like he wants to say more, but instead falters, “Thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


From there, Soojin clears her throat, mentioning something about having places to be, as well as Jinyoung and Hwiyoung being needed elsewhere, and it is an awkward game of bowing to everyone else, politeness in the air, as Donghyuck and Jeno try to ignore the tension in the air as they bid the others goodbye.

And then it is just them two, and it feels, it feels— 

It feels so suffocating.

Donghyuck's eyes are no longer on his, instead looking down on the ground as he clears his throat loudly. 

“So I guess now is the time to teach me the choreography,” Donghyuck starts, and he looks up to meet Jeno’s eyes.

He realises then. He realises he hasn’t looked at Donghyuck like this in so long— looked at Donghyuck in the eyes while seeing a clear blue. He looks away quickly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeno says, clearing his throat too, as he stumbles towards the speakers, turning on the song at a low volume. “I’ll— um. I think I should teach you the chorus first? It’s the sequence we’ll repeat the most, so— it’s— I think it’ll be best if I taught it to you first because, well I guess it’s the most important—“

“ _Jeno-ssi_ ,” Donghyuck’s voice cuts through the tension like a ship sailing along the water, and Jeno stops. “You can— if we’re going to work together, you have to relax. We both have to relax, okay?”  
  


“I am,” Jeno insists, but he knows neither are convinced.

“I want to do well,” Donghyuck confesses. “I want to do well, this song— it means a lot to me.”

Jeno looks up quickly to meet Donghyuck’s eyes then. He doesn’t even try to hide the misery in his voice anymore, “It does?”

Donghyuck looks away first this time, “I want to do well, so let’s please try to work well together, okay? Even if you— even if you don’t like me as a person anymore.”

“Don’t call me that then,” Jeno says.

“What?”

“Don’t call me with so much _formality_ then,” Jeno hesitates. “Just Jeno.”

Donghyuck chances a small smile on his face. “Okay, Just Jeno,” he says quietly.

“And I do. Like you,” Jeno adds. “I like you as a person. You know that. What happened— between us. It wasn’t about not liking you as a— as a person," his voice stumbles, "It was never that. You know that.”

Donghyuck takes a moment to process this, “Okay.” 

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay, Just Jeno,” Donghyuck smiles. Jeno knows him long enough to know the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “So. Chorus first, right?”

  
  
  


Jeno and Donghyuck work until the night, and it’s a lot of stumbling, and falling, repeating the same lyrics that burn through Jeno’s skin every time he hears it. It’s nervous laughters against the quiet walls that don’t dare tell anyone else, and condensation forming on the mirrors through hard work. It’s falling back into each other slowly, metaphorically _and_ physically, and the first time Jeno hesitates to touch Donghyuck again, touch Donghyuck again after _so many months_ if not to correct his dance move, Donghyuck laughs, hotly that Jeno feels it against his cheek from a few feet away. Donghyuck whispers, _Scared? I don’t bite, Jen,_ and Jeno replying, unfiltered, before he even realises, _I seem to recall that you do,_ reminded of all the times Donghyuck has marked his skin unceremoniously. 

It leaves Donghyuck blinking in surprise, before breaking down into tears of laughter. 

“Just tell me how to do the fucking move, Jeno,” Donghyuck says, and finally, for the first time that night, it leaves a domino effect of real laughter, genuine laughter, between them.

When they finish later that night, Donghyuck contemplates and tiptoes around asking Jeno as they pack up their bags before he gives up and blurts out, “Do you want to come with me to the convenience store right now? And get some ramen or something? I’m so hungry.”

Jeno turns to him, surprised, and even if everything Jeno’s been working towards the past few months threaten to topple like a house of cards, everything that Jeno’s been running from, the clear blue ringing in his ears has him saying, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”  
  


  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**loving you is the antidote**

  
  


When Donghyuck is in a different country, and they’re far apart, and time zones are a different shade of murky blue that reminds Jeno of everything he can’t have, they make do with early morning/late-night phone calls.

Surprisingly, _surprisingly_ , these are his favorite— more than horrible pixelated face-time calls and random texts throughout the day or while he’s sleeping, because these, _these_.

These calls are Donghyuck singing softly into the crackle of the phone, a sweet, sweet lullaby, and Donghyuck whispering across the world, _you make me savour the moonlight, lee jeno, did you know that,_ and in return he will mumble, _tell me something sweet, baby_ , teasing. Jeno will respond, _i forget that your voice is so sickeningly sweet, Hyuck, is it cold there? where you are? i don’t think it matters really because you— your voice, it makes everything feel like a spring day and clear skies. Hyuck, you’re a perfect day at the beach, you know that, right? you have to know that— the perfect, clear blue of it all,_ and Donghyuck, devastating as always, _lee jeno, even across the world, you know how to still make my heart beat like this? no fair._

It’s Donghyuck unfiltered, comforting, thousands of miles away; Donghyuck teasing, _are you flirting with me right now,_ on the phone after Jeno calls him following a slew of cheesy texts from Donghyuck himself; Donghyuck sneaking a phone call in a closet before he’s about to go onstage, breathlessly, _jeno, i miss your hands on me, i miss your hands running up against my sides, and your tongue along the sliver of my neck, jeno, do you remember— do you remember that time we—_

These calls are Jeno’s favorite because when Donghyuck voice filters through his phone at two a.m while he’s under the covers, it’s easy to imagine Donghyuck’s heart thrumming under the pads of his fingers again, it’s easy to fall again, easy to remember the good blues— the clear, the electric, the coral.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**;**

  
  
  


**some things never change (like how i’m holding on tight to you)**

_october._

  
  


Donghyuck’s solo SM station comes out, and it’s a _fucking hit._

The first hour, he charts at #65 on Melon, which, isn’t bad, but isn’t really anything, but Jeno still texts him a _congratulations_ , _this is amazing!_ He also contemplates for a bit, contemplates over-stepping his boundaries, contemplates making the same mistake twice, but if Jeno was anything, it was always weak for Donghyuck, so he also posts a celebratory instagram story of him streaming the song.

Fate checks off a win in the scoreboard.

Donghyuck responds with a _thank you so much!,_ still toeing on polite and distant, but after a few minutes, a new text comes in on Jeno's phone, and he's reading a text from Donghyuck saying, _maybe... you can treat me to dinner as congratulations? :)_

Jeno almost drops his phone at that, tries to figure out how to formulate a response with shaky hands, when another text comes in.

_It's okay if you don't want to. I overstepped my boundaries._

Jeno responds quicker this time, _no, no. yes to treating you to dinner. you deserve it._ And before the nerves get the best of him, _thank you for letting me be a part of this._

The next hour, it jumps to #32, a significant jump, and this time, Donghyuck texts Jeno first.

**donghyuck  
**did you see the charts? what the fuck

**jeno  
**i did!! congrats!!!!!!! you really deserve it.

**jeno  
**donghyuck, i'm really proud of you.

**donghyuck  
**jeno

**donghyuck  
**thank you :) you have no idea how much it means to me.

**donghyuck**   
coming from you

  
  


The third hour, eight p.m, it jumps to #5, and neither are really sure why or how, but Renjun texts Jeno a pann post that circulates around every social media website, and when Jeno opens it, he understands why.

  
  
  


> **NCT HAECHAN'S SOLO DEBUT IS FUCKING COOL, WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH OF AN ACE HE IS?**
> 
> NCT Haechan, one of the maknaes of the group just released his solo song and he's fucking cool. When did he grow up this much?
> 
> We all knew he can sing and dance, but he really picked a song that goes well with his voice.
> 
> **[insert gif]**
> 
> This dance is also fucking amazing
> 
> **[insert gif]**
> 
> Look at his expressions. He can seriously kill me…
> 
> I am not even his fan, but my friend showed me this on the bus and it was seriously amazing lol
> 
> I wish SM allows him to release more solos
> 
> Please check out his solo song and support him!
> 
> **link: youtube.com/video/2817132**
> 
>   
>    
> 
> 
> [+8232, -62] Woah I don't really stan idol groups anymore but I didn't realize SM had this kind of ace in their company  
>    
> 
> 
> [+7282, -82] Dont like idols but this song and this dance is totally my style
> 
> [+2342, -63] This is Haechan!! He is one of the maknaes of NCT from SM Entertainment! Please support him!!!! Lol anyway haechan lets walk all-kill path kkk this song is fucking good  
>    
> 
> 
> [+6321, -42] I don't even know who this person is but his gaze has me looking him up and watching all of his videos;--;  
>    
> 
> 
> [+3312, -12] But this dance is so fucking good? Look at the way his body moves wow it's getting hot here lololol  
>    
> 
> 
> [+2345, -33] I want to see him perform this live fuck
> 
> [+1133, -23] This song is fucking good but when you hear the lyrics it's so sad lol t_t who hurt him  
>    
> 
> 
> [+333, -2] Dont know who this is but he's Fucking handsome lmao
> 
> [+1223, -12] As expected SM has all the aces of the idol world

  
  
  


Donghyuck calls him this time around, and something about how he shares every thought with Jeno first leaves Jeno with a feeling simmering dangerously close to hope. He waits for it to ring a bit longer, nervousness building up inside of him.

"Hello?" Jeno says into the phone, tentatively, and Donghyuck responds with a shaky voice.

"Did you see it?" Donghyuck squeaks out, "Did you— Did you see the fucking charts?”

Jeno can't stop smiling, "Number fucking five, Donghyuck. You fucking did it.”

"Number _five,"_ Donghyuck repeats, and his voice grows louder. He's laughing in shock, " _Fuck!_ Number five. Fuck. NCT hasn't even charted this high before. I'm not even sure— I don't even know _why—“_

"You didn't see that post?”

"What post?" Donghyuck inquires frantically.

"There's a— there's a pann post about you. It's going viral. Renjun sent it to me," Jeno rambles, pacing across his living room floor because the adrenaline, the adrenaline is too much to stay still, "He didn't send it to you? I'm sure he did.”

"I haven't— I haven't been checking my messages," Donghyuck says, "Wait, let me look.”

A bit of fumbling, and he hears Donghyuck clicking through his phone.

"You haven't checked your messages?”

"I—" Donghyuck voice filters through the speakers. "I looked at yours.”

Jeno hums.

_“NCT Haechan's Solo Debut Is Fucking Cool, Why Does No One Talk About How Much of an Ace He Is?_ " Donghyuck reads out and he lets out a shocked laugh. 

Jeno hears Donghyuck murmuring the rest of the article through the crackle of the satellite, reading through the comments. He waits, a smile on his face.

"Oh my god, what the hell," Donghyuck finishes.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever jumped this high in the charts over a pann post,” Jeno comments, but he says it with pride swelling in his voice.

“These comments are so— this is so fucking crazy, Jeno,” Donghyuck voices. Jeno can hear him tapping away at his phone. “I’m just— I’m just me.”

"I never doubted you for a second, Hyuck," Jeno responds, and it just slips out, he swears on it, but he hears Donghyuck's breath hitch at the nickname, at Jeno's devastatingly fond voice and—

"Really?" Donghyuck breathes out. Amidst the craziness of everything, Jeno's voice makes time stand still again.

"Really what?" Jeno asks, still off the high of comprehending Donghyuck's number _five_.

“Really, you never doubted me?" Donghyuck questions earnestly, nervously.

"No," Jeno replies. "Of course not.”

Donghyuck grins, and Jeno can’t see his face, but he feels it in Donghyuck’s voice. “So that post.”

“That post,” Jeno agrees.

“Do you agree with everything they said?” Donghyuck teases.

It’s not what Jeno’s expecting Donghyuck to say at all, and he can’t control the laughter that spills out from him chest.

“Well, do _you_?!” Donghyuck laughs.

Jeno hums, “Take me out to dinner first and I’ll answer.”

“Wasn’t it supposed to be _you_ who took me out to dinner?” Donghyuck accuses.

“Was it?” Jeno feigns innocence.

And unlike everything else, unlike everything about them, it’s so easy to fall back like this.

Donghyuck hums. Bravely, “Guess we have to get dinner twice? You treat me and I treat you?”

Jeno pauses.

Everything feels larger than himself now, like this. Everything feels larger than himself, than the blue, _all_ the blues, _every_ blue.

“Jeno?” Donghyuck says cautiously after Jeno doesn’t respond.

“Okay,” Jeno responds. “Okay.”

Donghyuck lets out a breath through the receiver. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Fate’s game brings them together like two magnets who are physically and scientifically unable to stay away from each other from there.

A magnetic blue.

  
  
  


⇤

  
  


**i’d walk through fire for you; just let me adore you**

  
  


It’s hard to sleep over the first year and a half of Donghyuck’s debut. It’s hard to see each other in general— long gone are the dates around Insa-dong and Itaewon that were already secretive enough. That rules out going out in public together unless they can manage to keep their hands off of each other, but time together is short, always short— too short, and Donghyuck can’t bear to be around Jeno without at least slipping his hands in his. With the amount of people at the NCT dorms too, Jeno doesn’t come over often. 

It leaves them with Jeno’s apartment, a neutral zone. It’s a blessing, because it becomes a place where time stops, and life is not life anymore, and everything they whisper against each other’s skin is protected and guarded by the walls built around them. 

But still, Donghyuck doesn’t get to come over often.

So when he _does_ , when he does, they spend the time whispering _what-ifs_ into each other’s skin, teasingly; they spend time on Donghyuck’s MIDI keyboard that he leaves on Jeno’s living room table, writing songs that don’t make sense, writing songs that do make sense, writing songs about what to eat for dinner; they spend the time arguing over soy bean paste stew or kimchi stew; they spend the time arguing who has the better replica of Bob Ross’ painting tutorials; they spend the time arguing over why, just _why,_ Donghyuck had to leave so many marks on Jeno’s neck, and _Donghyuck, it’s fucking thirty-two degrees celsius outside, what the fuck is wrong with you, i can’t wear a turtleneck._

  
  


When he does come over, they spend the time painting a light blue over all the dark blues, as much as they can, as much as they can help, hoping, praying, asking a favor from fate, that they don’t mix.

  
  
  


**;**

  
  
  


**sad truth, i want no one (unless that someone’s you)**

_november._

  
  
  


The leaves start to turn brown, falling into the streets, and it’s so, _so_ , easy to fall back together again. It’s easy to fall back together again, with the way they go out regularly for a meal now, and the way Donghyuck presses Jeno’s thumb against his wrist when they’re just sitting in a practice room late at night, quietly, listening to new music they’ve just discovered. It’s easy to fall back together again, with the way they text constantly, at all hours, like they’re catching up towards all the lost time that had cruelly flowed against them.

It’s so easy that Jeno doesn’t notice the mistakes he’s repeating all over again, in the name of fate, until Renjun corners him into his studio one day.

Renjun locks the door behind Jeno after he invites Jeno for lunch, turning to face the other with a frown on his face.

“Jeno,” Renjun starts, as per usual as how all these usually start.

Jeno’s phone dings in return, and when Jeno reaches for his back pocket to grab it, Renjun raises his eyebrow at him.

“Don’t you dare get that,” Renjun says.

“But—“

“We all know it’s Donghyuck, Jeno,” Renjun rolls his eyes. “Don’t get that.”

“We don’t know it’s Donghyuck!”

He had just sent Donghyuck a picture of a dog before he had stumbled into Renjun’s studio. It was probably Donghyuck.

Renjun furrows his eyebrows, “Do you know what the fuck you’re doing?”

“This is not the lunch you promised me,” Jeno mumbles, dumbfounded.

“Jeno,” Renjun says warningly. He repeats, “Do you know what the fuck you’re doing?”

Jeno sighs. “What do you mean, Renjun?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Donghyuck,” Renjun hisses. “What are you doing with Donghyuck. You’re _talking_ again?”

It’s Jeno’s turn to furrow his eyebrows, “You know that we worked together for his song. I choreographed it.”

“Yes, and?”

Jeno looks at him quizzically, “And? And we started talking again.”

“As something more?”

“What? No. No. We’re just friends right now. I think.”

“You think,” Renjun deadpans. 

Jeno frowns, “Why the hell are you being so hostile, Renjun? You’re the one who helped produce the song with him and _you_ _know_ we started working together and talking again.”

“Yeah to _help_ you guys, Jeno,” Renjun snaps. “To help you guys, because obviously this past fucking year has done nothing but make everything worse for you guys. But you— you’re fucking— you’re fucking making the same mistakes again, Jeno!”

“I’m not making the same mistakes! I’m not doing anything!”  
  


“Not doing anything? You are, you’re being a little bitch, actually,” Renjun rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t deserve this. Not a second time, Jeno.”

Jeno inhales.

Renjun sighs. “I always take your side, Jeno, you know that. You’re my best friend.”

Jeno snorts— it doesn’t feel like it right now.

“I took your side when you broke up with him, Jeno. I let you do what you did even if I think that you made the biggest fucking mistake of your life,” Renjun says. “Then I watched you destroy yourself for _months_ , because you thought you didn’t deserve something good. And now, now you’re making the same fucking mistake again.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Jeno repeats.

“Exactly,” Renjun snaps. “Exactly. You’re not _fucking_ doing anything. Do you plan on doing something? Because you and Donghyuck are falling back into old habits fairly quickly, with you not planning to do anything about it. You can’t even admit that you ever got over him, let alone that you’re starting to fall in love with him again.”

Jeno frowns, stepping forward, fists clenched, his fingertips making crescent moons into his palm. “You don’t know anything about us. About what I’m thinking. What we’re ‘doing again’. Don’t— don’t pretend like you know us, Renjun. You don’t understand.”

“What do you feel for Donghyuck, Jeno?”

Jeno ignores him, “Donghyuck and I are _friends,_ we’re learning to be friends again, that’s all we are, and there’s nothing wrong with tha—“

“What do you feel for Donghyuck, Jeno?” Renjun repeats.

“—that, there’s no _crime_ against being friends with—“

“What do you feel for Donghyuck, Jeno?” Renjun is practically yelling now.

“I love him,” Jeno snaps. “I _love_ him, I _never_ _stopped_ loving him, I’ve _always_ loved him, is that what you want to hear?!”

Renjun pauses.

“I love him,” Jeno continues, “And I’m so, _so scared,_ to love him again, but I do. I love him, and I don’t— I don’t know what to do, not when he’s back in my life again, like this, and I feel— I feel selfish for having him again like this— having him like this when I never stopped loving him.”

He exhales.

Renjun speaks quietly this time, a clear contrast from before, “You have to tell him, Jeno.”

“I can’t,” Jeno shakes his head.

“You can.”

“I can’t,” Jeno presses.

“You can,” Renjun insists. “Tell him. Tell him, because he’s still so fucking in love with you Jeno, you have to see that. You have to tell him before, before he finally gives up Jeno. You know that, right? That he never gave up all these months? No matter how much you pushed him away? He was _still_ always there. Right next to you. Always there _waiting_ for you.”

Jeno grimaces. 

“You’re fucking taking him and then letting him slip from your fingers Jeno, _twice_ now, and not only is that fucked up from your end— just so _completely_ stupid hurting both him _and_ yourself, but one day, one day, he’s going to give up. He’s going to give up. So tell him.”

Jeno sits down on the couch, his legs feeling much too weak again. He pulls his knees to his chest. Renjun’s right, he knows, but the words twist his insides anyway.

He’s so tired of playing fate’s cruel game.

“But you, Jeno,” Renjun states. “It has to be you.”

And Jeno, Jeno knows this. But still, he asks, “Why… me?”

“Because you fucking love him,” Renjun says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Because you fucking love him, and you’re always going to be in love with him. It’s always going to be him. So _you_ have to be the one to take the first step, because you fucking loved him enough to let him go, and you fucking love him enough to let yourself be had by him again. It has to be you.”

  
  
  


**;**

  
  


**exactly what you run from, you end up chasing**

  
  


_december._

  
  


Donghyuck gets busy again with award shows, and winter lookbooks that they don’t see each other again until mid-December, Christmas looming dangerously close.

They agree to go out for dinner, a ramen place in Itaewon.

Conversation is light— it’s the first time Jeno sees Donghyuck in person after his conversation with Renjun, and it has him feeling on edge the whole night.

Donghyuck takes note.

“Look, what the hell is up?” Donghyuck asks, after Jeno finishes his ramen fairly quickly even after Donghyuck is barely on his sixth bite.

“What? Nothing,” Jeno stammers out.

“Nothing,” Donghyuck deadpans.

He doesn’t respond, and Donghyuck raises his eyebrow.

Jeno sighs, and raises his hand up to shake out his bangs. “I’m sorry. Just some things going on. I’m sorry I’m being weird.”

Donghyucks eyes soften, “Something up?”

He shakes his head, “Just something Renjun said to me.”

Donghyuck studies him carefully. He hesitates for a second, before leaning over the table to reach for Jeno’s hand. Hesitating again, he links their pinkies together.

He doesn’t ask if Jeno wants to talk about it, instead, “I’m always here, you know that, right?”

_He’s always there, right next to you, waiting for you._

Jeno breathes out. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Thank you.”

Donghyuck stares into Jeno’s eyes, and he’s scared, scared that Donghyuck can see right through him. Donghyuck nods, but doesn’t let go of Jeno’s pinky. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry I’m being like this,” Jeno says. “It’s nothing. Nevermind. I’m sorry.”

_One day, he’s going to give up. Tell him._

“Stop saying sorry,” Donghyuck says, and it feels like all their memories flowing through their veins again.

  
  
  


Dinner goes on, and they decide to take a walk along the back alleys of Itaewon when the first snow of the year, so, so late into the year, decides to fall.

“The first snow,” Donghyuck says idly, scoffing.

_The first snow. If you’re with someone during the first snow of the year, you’ll be with them for a long time._

Fate is so, so cruel.

They never let go of each other’s pinkies, not when they exited the ramen shop and Donghyuck intertwined their pinkies like it was the most normal thing in the world. Truth be told, Jeno didn’t want to mention it to Donghyuck, fearful that it was nothing, nothing but a _habit_ formed by years between them.

“Do you believe in fate?” Jeno asks in response, and cool air comes out of his mouth.

Donghyuck turns to him. “What?”

“First snow,” Jeno gasps against the cold air. “Do you believe in fate?”

“I— I don’t know,” Donghyuck answers honestly.

“I think fate is playing a cruel game on us,” Jeno confesses. 

“Fate?” Donghyuck echoes, surprised.

“Having the opportunity to choreography your solo station, for _that song._ Everything about this— everything about us falling back together again,” Jeno continues. “Fate. Everything about it is so _cruel.”_

It’s said bitterly, and Donghyuck can’t help but let go of Jeno’s pinky quickly at how harsh Jeno’s voice sounds. He flinches.

_“Cruel,”_ Donghyuck echoes the bitterness.

“I don’t know what to think, Donghyuck,” Jeno is rambling again, “I don’t know— what are we doing?”

“What?” Donghyuck questions.

“What are we doing?” Jeno repeats. “What is this? What are we doing again?”

A part of him. A part of him wishes that Donghyuck will tell him that they’re friends, only friends, just friends— that that’s all they’re ever going to be. He hopes this, almost prays for it, even if he’s not sure that there’s a God out there, because fate is cruel, and the world is painted in blue, and his fear— his _fear,_ it always threatens to outweigh everything.

But this is fate’s game they’re playing, and they’re back to the beginning— the crossroads of fate, of love, of fear, all together.

Donghyuck breathes out, “You feel it, still? Too?”

It’s not a confession, but it teeters dangerously close.

Jeno looks away.

“Look at me,” Donghyuck says, quietly at first.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Donghyuck searching his face, feels Donghyuck gripping tightly on his arm— a way to try to get Jeno’s body to tilt towards him.

But Jeno doesn’t, and he looks everywhere but at Donghyuck.

Everywhere, everywhere, but Donghyuck.

“Look at _me,”_ Donghyuck says again, firmly this time, with determination in his voice.

It’s a cobalt blue. Fierce, steady, pure in its intentions.

His grip tightens on Jeno’s arm. The dimly lit lamppost a couple feet away from them, the boot prints on the floor, the falling snow that falls so idly, the situation almost looks like a perfect motion picture. Jeno looks everywhere but him.

“Jeno, I said _loo—”_

“No!” Jeno snaps, and Donghyuck flinches, and lets go of his arm quickly in surprise.

“Don’t you _get_ it?” Jeno yells, and he inhales quickly to get ahold of his breath. It’s shaky, and puffs of cold air leave his mouth, jagged and staggering. It builds up, up, up, and then he’s breathing heavily, adrenaline from the outburst.

This time he looks at Donghyuck— really looks at him, fierce gaze in his eyes. Fear, and cobalt blue always threaten to win.

Donghyuck gives him a bewildered look.

“Don’t you get it?” Jeno repeats, and in another breath his shoulders sag, and it’s like all fight in him leaves his body. “I’m tired. I’ve only _ever been_ looking at you, Donghyuck. Always. And now, I’m tired. It hurts and I’m tired.”

It’s a flurry of blues, and then Donghyuck is furrowing his eyebrows and steps forward, “No.”

Jeno glances at him, “What?”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “ _No._ You don’t— you don’t get to fucking do that to me. Not again. You don’t get to fuckin— you don’t get to fucking keep _deciding_ things for us without talking to me, without, without letting me in. I’m not— I’m not fucking _doing_ that again.”

Jeno doesn’t respond, looks anywhere but him, fingers twitching, because all he really wants to do is reach out and—

“You have to fucking tell me, Jeno,” Donghyuck snaps. “I _don’t_ get it. I don’t get it so you need to fucking tell me. I can’t do this anymore. If you— if something happen— if you don’t love me anymor—“ he cuts himself off with an inhale.

“If you don’t love me anymore,” he repeats, harsher. “But, if you don’t, you have to, to tell me, or I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to let you go.”

“Hyuck,” Jeno says lowly, and the ice cold breath that comes out of him feels like, blue, blue, blue. “You know it was never that.”

He reaches out towards him, but Donghyuck—

Donghyuck takes a step back to keep the distance between them, wrists wrung out and hands shaking.

“Do I?”

  
And Jeno, _Jeno_ doesn’t know how to respond to that, how can Donghyuck not know, not know when Jeno still looks at Donghyuck like he paints every color into Jeno’s world.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Donghyuck says thickly, and he looks up at Jeno with eyes so glassy, so blue, it makes the emptiness Jeno’s felt for _so_ long shake against his ribs. “I can’t do it anymore, Jen. You’re not the only one who’s tired. You broke my heart.”

It strikes a chord in Jeno, because, he knows, he knows he did— break Donghyuck’s heart. He knows this. But wasn’t it supposed to be repaired? Isn’t that how life works? Wasn’t Donghyuck’s heart supposed to be stitched up, back together, stronger than ever, stronger, _better,_ without Jeno— better without the weight that Jeno brought along with him?

“And I know,” Donghyuck continues, wiping at his eyes though no tears have fallen, as if he’s getting to them before they can free fall. “I know you didn’t mean it— I know you _don’t_ mean it. You’re not like that. You wouldn’t do that to me. You wouldn’t.”

“Listen,” Donghyuck breathes out, and Jeno hates that all he can do is look, and look, and stay frozen under the moonlight. “I thought— when we started talking, again, I thought I could have you. Like this. Friends. But fate has a funny way of playing with us, don’t you think?” 

It rings in Jeno’s mind like the first time they fall back into each other, and he thought the same thing.

“But I can’t,” Donghyuck says, resigned. “I can’t have you like this, because no matter, no matter how long we have between us, how far apart we were, I still love you.” He laughs, and it’s listless. “I still love you. And maybe you still love me too,” _I do, I do, I still love you, I always love you, I have always loved you, “_ But, we’re both tired now. And we can’t have each other like this.”

It feels like the first time— the first time they fall apart, with Donghyuck waiting by the door for Jeno to run outside of the bedroom to tell him _stop_ , to tell him _come back,_ to tell him _I never wanted this, I never wanted to be apart._ It feels like the first time, and that someone out there is giving Jeno a second chance, a second chance at Donghyuck, a second chance he doesn’t deserve. 

He should take it, he should grab Donghyuck by the wrists and feel his heartbeat under the pad of his thumb, and tell him he loves him, he loves him, he loves him. Tell him he’s tired of feeling this blue, tell him he’s sorry, tell him that he’s not— not tired, not if it means they can have each other, _I’m sorry I never let you choose, I was just scared you would choose us, choose this blue;_ he _should_ , he should tell Donghyuck exactly that and—

Donghyuck wrings his wrist again, and takes a step back, his boots crunching against the snow, out into the shadow away from the lamppost, and Jeno wants to yell, _no, stop, just. just give me a minute to compose my thoughts— to gather everything I’ve wanted to say to you for months, don’t go, just—_

“I really, really, love you,” Donghyuck breathes out. 

Donghyuck scoffs, an afterthought, “Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?”

He takes another step back, and pauses, just a second, before he’s turning on his heel, walking away. Walking away from Jeno, away from second chances, away from fate, and it feels too much like Jeno is suffocating.

He’s so tired of feeling this blue.

Jeno is usually calculated, and doesn’t say things without running through them in his head. But everything about _this_ , everything about _them_ , from how they come together and fall apart has never been something Jeno could calculate, never something he could sort into pro’s and con’s lists, no matter how hard he tried. He’s learned that now.

So, he runs.

Donghyuck is already turning the corner of the next block by the time he gets his feet to move, gets his feet to realise _there might not be any more chances, you might have used it all up this time, you can’t let him get away, not like this, not with cobalt blue written in the shadows._

“Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck doesn’t hear him, not when he’s turned the corner into a busier street, with bright neon lights, and couples holding hands chattering amongst each other, multiple shoes crunching against the snow. Not when Jeno’s voice burns with the frozen air, and his voice comes out muffled and shaky.

He picks up speed, as much speed as he can with his boots sinking into the snow, and says louder, “Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck slows, as if he thinks he’s heard something, but isn’t quite sure, and Jeno can see, can barely see with his eyes shaking, Donghyuck undoing his scarf as if to hear better. He sees Donghyuck’s silhouette turn into an empty back alley, and it’s all he needs.

He stops, yells as loud as he can, “Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck turns.

Jeno starts running again.

He sees flurries of blue as Donghyuck waits, and when Jeno finally catches up to him, he’s looking at Jeno with a look of surprise, a glint of hopefulness that feels like it’s made a home in his eyes for a long time.

Jeno stops to catch his breath, and Donghyuck watches, but remains unmoving.

“I’m tired,” Jeno says.

“You just ran quite a bit,” Donghyuck says, and he’s smiles, slightly. He’s smiling because they both know that’s not what he means.

“I did,” Jeno says. “I did, because I’m tired.”

“Hmm,” Donghyuck’s eyes are kind, always kind, always clear blue, but his arms come fold across his chest, guarded. “That’s a bit of a juxtaposition there, isn’t it.”

Tenderly, “Hyuck.”

“Jeno.”

“ _Donghyuck.”_

_“Jen_ ,” Donghyuck replies, and Jeno takes a step forward. Donghyuck inches backwards, but lets his arms drop down to his sides.

“I’m tired, too, Donghyuck,” Jeno repeats again, and Donghyuck opens his mouth, but he shakes his head, raising a hand. “Let me— I need to say this. Because I’ve gone on too long— too long not saying what I needed to say. I’ve gone on too long letting you fill in the blanks when you shouldn’t have had to.”

“I’m tired of feeling this blue, Donghyuck,” he steps forward again, and this time, Donghyuck doesn’t back away. He reaches forward, grabbing at Donghyuck’s wrist. Donghyuck flinches— Jeno’s fingers are ice cold. Jeno presses the pad of his thumb into Donghyuck’s wrist, and it pulses, warm. Donghyuck is always warm. 

“I feel this blue. And for all that I’ve known you, every time I was with you, it was such a good blue. A blue that felt cool against my face when the sun beat down on it. A blue that felt like the warm ocean swirling around my legs, with the wind tickling my face,” Jeno says, and Donghyuck’s eyes flash with understanding, like he knows exactly what Jeno means. “And then it didn’t feel like that. It felt like— it felt like I was drowning for a long time. Like suddenly I was being dragged underwater, and suddenly I was lost at sea, and the clouds were so blue I couldn’t find the north star to bring me home.”

“I didn’t want you to be a part of that,” Jeno says softly. “Not when you’re you, and you’re a star.” Donghyuck opens his mouth, but Jeno shoots him a look. “I’ve always thought that you were a star, Hyuck, even before, even before everything.”

“I didn’t want to trap you in this blue,” Jeno continues. “I thought— even if I— even if I _hurt_ you, no matter what, it wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t be as bad as feeling that blue. You would get over it. And your heart would repair itself. And you would be stronger, and brighter. Because you’re you.”

“And you’re you,” Donghyuck says softly in reply. “You’re _you,_ Jeno, don’t you understand, you’re—“

“Please,” Jeno interrupts, shaking his head. “Please, you have to understand—“

“I do,” Donghyuck says, firmly, and he’s taking a step closer, wrapping his hand around Jeno’s and clutching tightly. “I _do._ And _you_ have to understand, that, these blues, these shades of blue. They’re all you. You’re— none of that matters— you’re you. All of it. And it’s okay to feel these blues. The good, the bad. Feeling this blue, it’s okay. It doesn’t change that it’s you. And _you,_ Jeno, you’re—”

“I, just,” Jeno says, and he finally lets his guard down. Lets Donghyuck see the blue he’s been hiding all along, in the crevices of his body, hidden in his ribcage near his heart, “I don’t want to waste another day of not knowing you anymore.”

The bustling of people and cars streets over feel like miles away.

Donghyuck reaches forward to tug him close, and Jeno stumbles, his feet against the snow before he’s falling into Donghyuck’s arms, clutching tightly at the other’s coat sleeve. 

It feels like finding the north star. It feels like coming home.

“You have to talk to me,” Donghyuck says into his hair, muffled, “We have to talk to each other even when things get hard, Jeno.”

“I know, I know,” Jeno admits. “I know. I’m just. I’m just always scared.”

“Me too,” Donghyuck confesses. “Me too, but. But we. We love each other, right? And when we love each other we have to— we have to, to talk.”

It’s said uncertainly, and Jeno wishes Donghyuck didn’t feel like that.

“I really, really, love you too,” Jeno stumbles out, “I never stopped— I loved you, I _love_ you— just— If you would still have me—and I just— I’m sorry, god, I’m so _sorry—“_

_“_ Stop saying sorry,” Donghyuck says, and it feels like a mirror parallel. “Okay?”

Jeno shakes his head, “I don’t think I could stop saying sorry, not after I— for me to just come back to you— to ask this of you— and—“ 

“I love you,” Donghyuck interrupts. “So much.”

Jeno stops.

“Okay?”

Jeno nods, “Okay.”

“Please don’t— let’s not do this again,” Donghyuck asks of him, and it’s so clear, so bare, it makes Jeno feel—

“Hyuck—“

Donghyuck shakes his head, “I don’t want you to say anything. Just— just. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Donghyuck smiles, “Okay.”

“I really love you,” Jeno mumbles.

Donghyuck laughs, and he winds his arms around Jeno’s waist, tighter, tighter.  
  


“I really love you, too.”

“Ugh, this is so embarrassing,” Jeno mutters. “But I really, really, _really_ lov—“

  
  


Donghyuck captures Jeno’s lips in his, warm, always warm, and Jeno thinks this blue; this _blue_ feels like blue hydrangeas floating up and away due to the wind, like regret and apologies being carried out; forgotten.

This blue feels like hope— no longer being paralyzing, and trust— the only currency in love; an almost clear blue that flows through Jeno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **LONG author's note incoming:**  
>  oh man, i started this fic, many a months ago. (pre-boom!!!!!!!!!!) since then, a lot of personal things happened in my life and it continued to shape how i viewed love and sacrifice. bcos that, it continued to be a long time before i wanted to release this fic in the world.
> 
> i hope there will never come a day where i look at this fic with anything but fondness.
> 
> the second chapter of this fic is an index, i have some links to share (dh's solo song, jeno's choreography, etc) as well as a playlist.
> 
> each section title is a song and could be used as a playlist in the fic. it's too long, so the next chapter will be an index for all the songs used (sorry i dont have a spotify, and my apple music is on private), as well as any extra info!
> 
> thank you for taking the time to read this. it means so much to me.
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/excessiveIy) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/haecns)  
> 


	2. INDEX

**index:**

each section title is a song, and could be used as a playlist to this fic.

in order, the songs are:

  * when the party’s over; billie eilish
  * when the party’s over; billie eilish
  * always difficult, always beautiful; wooseok (pentagon)
  * it’s not living (if it’s not with you) ; the 1975
  * not a song, but an excerpt from the documentary ‘cave of forgotten dreams’ by werner herzog
  * make you mine; public
  * back in my arms; carlie hanson
  * norman f*****g rockwell; lana del rey
  * watermelon sugar; harry styles
  * 0310; yerin baek
  * enchanted; taylor swift
  * in the name of love; bebe rexha martin garrix
  * mystery of love; sufjan stevens
  * love song; lana del rey
  * death by a thousand cuts; taylor swift
  * run away with me; carly rae jepsen
  * cruel summer; taylor swift
  * winter bear; taehyung (bts)
  * hard feelings; lorde
  * magic; one direction
  * love me again; g soul
  * golden; harry styles
  * some things never change; frozen 2 (lol)
  * adore you; harry styles
  * no one else like you; adam levine
  * exactly what you run from you end up chasing; tyler the creator



**\+ some things never change (from frozen) and exactly what you run from you end chasing aren't necessarily themes to the fic (if you listen to it while reading you'll probably get whiplash LOL, but i liked the lyrics and wanted to use them!**

  * the cafe i mentioned in hongdae is a real cafe, really is located in hongdae, but it is in the middle of the busy hongdae street not in the outskirts of the neighborhood. it's in the second floor of a building, and you can easily miss it if u don't look for it, so it's not super busy. i definitely recommend you to check it out if you're ever in seoul!
    * it's called arriate.
  * i see jeno's choreography for sm station most similar to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeCOiIho91I). 
    * i don't imagine donghyuck's solo song to sound like needed me, but the control of the dance (how it goes from fast, erratic moves, to slow, controlled, resigned) and how it flows is something i think stylistically fits most similarly to how i see jeno's choreography.
  * donghyuck's song melodically sounds most close to g. soul's [where do we go from here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dcEDndCPF4) ( _with a bit of a faster bpm_ ), but his lyrics come similar to g. soul's [love me again.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DCQ6BJu8Is)



there's a lot of symbolism with the color blue in this fic, and other objects! can you find them all? hehe

i hope you guys enjoyed (iffy word, considering how sad it could get, lol, but still!) as much as i enjoyed writing it. feel free to let me know how you liked it (i would LOVE that!!)


End file.
